Danish all-rounder Mads Pedersen gave his Lidl-Trek teammates a public dressing-down after stage 1 of Paris-Nice, after they collectively did not ship Pedersen to a place the place he may battle for victory.
Pedersen is clearly in good type, having simply gained a stage and the overall in the Tour de la Provence earlier this yr and has an excellent observe report in Paris-Nice, too, with stage wins in 2022 and 2023.
Nonetheless, the previous World Champion got here house a disillusioned twelfth within the bunch dash at Le-Perray-en-Yvelines that determined stage 1 of the 2025 version, after he and his teammates did not work properly sufficient collectively within the closing kilometres to place Pedersen ready to battle in opposition to stage winner Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep).
“There’s not a lot to analyse. It was simply awful driving, and the work being finished right this moment wasn’t ok in any respect. So there’s not a lot to say,” he advised Danish TV station TV2.
“There’s some positional battle the place I misplaced them [his teammates], however on the similar time I knew it might open up once more on the left aspect in some unspecified time in the future, so I may bounce again to them. However one thing occurred to them too, and so they misplaced one another.”
Pedersen was in a slightly extra conciliatory temper on Monday morning initially in Montesson of a second, flatter stage, saying he hoped it might additionally conclude with one other bunch dash, however with a really completely different consequence.
“We made some errors coming into the dash, we misplaced one another too many occasions and had an excessive amount of work discovering one another once more, so we simply missed out on having an opportunity for sprinting,” Pedersen advised Cyclingpro.net initially of stage 2.
Though his total dissatisfaction remained clear, in distinction Pedersen singled out Sunday’s efficiency by Mattias Skjelmose for reward for his stage 1 efficiency, after the Dane bridged throughout to a harmful late breakaway additionally together with Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers) and Matteo Trentin (Tudor Professional Biking).
That motion had saved his teammates some vitality for the finale after issues got here again collectively once more, Pedersen identified, just for their plan to go critically awry within the build-up for the dash itself.
On the stage 2 begin, Pedersen remained upbeat for his possibilities of getting a 3rd Paris-Good stage win in 4 editions of the race at Bellegarde on Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s kind of of a distinct dash right this moment, the final 5 kilometres are fairly simple,” he identified, “and hopefully we’ll get it proper right this moment.”
