The Lidl-Trek men showed how much fun a great team can be
With a heads-up sprint for second at Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday, Giulio Ciccone secured his best ever one-day classics finish, and tied a big, sturdy bow on one of the best start-to-finish classics seasons in Lidl-Trek men’s history.
The team scored three big wins with Mattias Skjelmose at Amstel Gold Race, Mads Pedersen at Gent-Wevelgem and Eddy Theuns at Bredene Koksijde Classic, and major results at Paris-Roubaix (3rd, Mads Pedersen), Tour of Flanders (2nd, Mads Pedersen, and 5th, Jasper Stuyven), E3 Saxo Classic (2nd, Mads Pedersen), Classic Bruge-De Panne (2nd, Jonathan Milan), Gent-Wevelgem (3rd, Jonathan Milan, on the podium with Pedersen), and of course Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2nd, Giulio Ciccone, with Thibau Nys in 5th and Andrea Bagioli in 6th).
Giulio Ciccone flashed his power in a heads-up spring at Liège-Bastogne-Liège after holding off the peloton in a breakaway.
Lidl-Trek’s success spanned a wide range of race profiles and parcours. Most notably, it occurred in the midst of an incredible run by two riders that has rarely been seen in cycling. UAE Team Emirates’ Tadej Pogacar and Alpecin–Deceuninck’s Mathieu van der Poel have accounted for seven one-day victories since March. If one of those two didn’t win a race, it was almost exclusively because the other won instead.
The one exception? When Skjelmose outsprinted Pogacar and reigning Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel at Amstel Gold Race earlier this month.
Sometimes you have to tip your cap to a pair of greats. Lidl-Trek riders took second to the Pogacar/Van der Poel duology four times this spring. Ciccone’s quote after Liège summed up the dynamic well:
Mattias Skjelmose crying tears of joy after one of the most inspiring wins of the season in cycling.
“I think we, as a team, did everything perfectly,” Ciccone said. “We had a plan and we raced in the perfect way. Always in position and we played our cards in the best way. Finishing second behind Pogacar, I don’t want to say it’s like a victory, but it’s definitely a good feeling in the end.”
Lidl-Trek’s success is a testament to the team’s two greatest competitive advantages: Unparalleled equipment support and rider depth.
The cobbled classics squad took an innovative approach to the menacing roads of Belgium and northern France, eschewing a second chainring for a simpler, more reliable 1x setup. The decision took advantage of the Trek Madone’s compatibility with SRAM’s Universal Derailleur Hanger design, which allowed it to accept the gravel-oriented 13-speed RED XPLR AXS groupset.
Jonathan Milan helping Mads Pedersen onto the top step of the Gent-Wevelgem podium.
From a team perspective, there’s no question that Lidl-Trek benefited from so often having multiple cards to play in every race. Gent-Wevelgem, Amstel Gold and Liège are great examples. In all three instances, Lidl-Trek’s best performing riders — Pedersen, Skjelmose and Ciccone — could confidently put themselves in breakaways knowing that the team had some of the strongest riders in the bunch if their long attacks failed. In the case of Gent-Wevelgem, Milan finished on the podium with Pedersen, and during the Ardennes Classics, Thibau Nys was a marked man as one of the fastest uphill finishers in the world.
“It’s awesome to have teammates like this,” Pedersen said after Gent-Wevelgem. “With Jonny in the peloton, it was my time to do what he did last year, and luckily I was able to make it all the way to the finish line. And if I couldn’t make it to the finish line, then at least I would have put pressure on the other teams and Jonny would still have been there for the sprint.”
Eddy Theuns scored an emotional victory at Bredene Koksijde Classic.
During a classics season in which the results often felt inevitable, Lidl-Trek has arguably done the most to inject unpredictability into the proceedings. The formula has been simple: Fast bike + teamwork + hard work = The best shot at tasting glory. The team’s overall effort has thus far been rewarded with a steady climb up to No. 2 on the UCI’s team rankings, behind only the squad of the defending World and Tour de France champion.
Once again, Lidl-Trek’s post-race reactions are instructive. Here’s Pedersen after E3:
“This is not only a big step forward in terms of results at this race but it is also confirmation that the shape is there,” Pedersen said. “You saw today, he [MVDP] is on another level but everything is possible. So much can happen in these races, so for us it is about not giving up.”
Lots more big things in store for 2025.
Lidl-Trek is doing everything in its power to slow two great riders’ march on history. The team’s breakthroughs have been both profound and thrilling. In a year of so much individual excellence, Lidl-Trek is showing how much fun a great team can be. It’s not done yet.
“We proved to be a solid team, with the right mix of leaders, experienced helpers and young powerful guys driving us to be in the big game for the win at each race,” Lidl-Trek team manager Luca Guercilena said. “Now we go to the grand tour season with some confidence. We are called to make another step up to keep building our legacy in cycling.”
