The Dane suffered a setback with an unlucky puncture in the thick of the action but his never give up attitude saw him ride a determined race to make it back up into a podium position.
Mads Pedersen came into ‘The Hell of the North’ as one of the pre-race favorites and made his intentions clear from the first cobbled sector, sitting up at the front of the bunch on the first cobbled sector before Lidl-Trek helped take control of the race.
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As the sectors were quickly ticked off, a stretched out bunch hit the five star sector, Trouée d’Arenberg and it was clear that it was game on!
Pedersen was sitting third wheel at the end of the sector and was reacting to every move made by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and the eventual solo winner, Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin – Deceuninck).
However, bad luck struck with just over 70 kilometers of racing to go, with a bike change causing the Danish rider to lose contact with the other key race leaders but, this was perhaps the moment when Pedersen’s grit and determination shone the brightest.
Once he found himself in a group of chasers, the 29-year-old former world champion, showed his class before forcing a split after deciding he wanted to press on to keep trying to close the gap to the leading duo but, on the Carrefour de l’Arbre, it looked certain that the first two spots would go to van der Poel and Pogačar.
Pedersen was locked in a battle for third with Wout van Aert (Visma Lease-a-Bike) and Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates XRG) on the final sectors of the day and, despite all the work he had done previously, looked to still be strongest.
Pedersen was on the front as the trio made the turn onto the iconic Roubaix velodrome and was the first to start his sprint, going long and, as we have come to expect at the end of a hard day’s racing, he was able to maintain his power to hold off the others to take the final step on the podium for a second consecutive year.
Mads’ Reaction
I felt really good and I had a good feeling and the team did impressive work the whole day to keep me out of trouble and get me into the sectors in a good position and pulling at the right moments so everything went really well until the moment. You never know what might’ve happened if I didn’t puncture that’s the beauty in this race, sometimes it hits you and sometimes it hits others. It’s nice to watch and anything can happen but sadly today I was the unlucky one with the puncture at a really bad moment, which kind of decided the race for me. When Tadej attacks, it’s really not ideal to puncture.
In the moment it happened I felt good and I was also in the right spot. We all tried to come back but it’s not that easy to close the gap on Tadej [Pocagar] and Mathieu [van der Poel] and I also can’t go with everything with 6 or 7 guys on my wheel but we all tried and the whole group was working quite ok. We knew we were racing for third and that was just something we needed to do. You do have have to make your head ready for something else and even in that moment we weren’t even racing for a podium but in this race you never know what happens so keep fighting and yeah, you can end up on the podium anyway.
Another podium in a Monument, I shouldn’t complain about that but I came to win today and with a puncture in a really bad moment you never know what could’ve happened. It took me out of the chance of fighting for a win. I’m not saying that I would’ve been able to win but at least I could’ve given it a better shot. All in all I finished with a podium in a Monument and it was a good classic campaign.
At that moment [after the puncture] you try and get the best out of it because you never know what can happen. We heard that Tadej crashed and we thought maybe we will make it back to him but you never know with this race. Anything can happen so keep fighting and maybe it turns around, but this year it didn’t, it was not my day. Shit happens. Mathieu was so impressive to win three times in a row. You have to take your hat off to him. The way he’s racing is really, really impressive so congrats. After I punctured, I tried everything to come back at that moment. There were still three guys ahead so we weren’t even racing for the podium so we did everything we could to fight and make it back and fight for a podium.
I heard [Wout van Aert & Florian Vermeersch] talk together and I’m not stupid. I don’t speak Flemish but I can use my ears and my brain and I had the feeling they wanted to attack, but I tried to keep the speed high and give them the impression that I was ready for anything. I tried to keep them on one side so they only had one side to attack on and use the track as much as possible. I learned this on the track with Michael Mørkøv.
