Mads Pedersen is full-gas for Green
Lidl-Trek rider attacking like Mad Max to keep his green jersey in Tour de France
Have you ever seen a man work harder to keep his green jersey in the Tour de France?
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) is riding his ass off, trying to win every intermediate sprint. He’s a points vacuum. The pure sprinters might scoff — “We will not demean ourselves with squabbling for coins like a beggar.”
Pedersen isn’t a pure sprinter but he knows how to beat them his own way. By tenacity, tactics, consistency and deploying his team to tire out the true fast men whenever there’s a climb to punish them
Today on stage 12 from Nevers to Chalon-sur-Saône, he did everything possible to score points — and more importantly, to prevent guys like Jasper Philipsen, Minima Girmay and Tim Merlier from taking points.
First, he went full-gas to take second in the intermediate sprint. Put twenty points in my green bag. Job done, box checked.
Then on the hillier terrain in the last 40 kilometers, he put his team up front in an attempt to wear out the pure sprinters before — or better yet, drop them if possible.
He had American Quinn Simmons attacking constantly. Mads is like Mad Max, the Road Warrior. He’s not going to let these fast-twitch guys take his green jersey!
Philipsen, Girmay, Merlier, Kooij and Max Kanter, they hate Pedersen right now. Mads is trying to hurt them all over the race course. Why can’t they have a gentleman’s agreement to just settle this in the proper, time-honored fashion — at the finish line?
Why — because Pedersen isn’t playing a game he can’t win. He’s very fast but not explosively, insanely fast. He doesn’t have a dedicated train like Philipsen or Girmay.
No, this is the only way he wins green — by punching these guys as many times as possible before they wind it up for the final sprint. He’s doing damage control by doing as much damage as possible.
That strategy includes bluffing his competition as he did this morning. He made it sound like, yeah, not going to be super aggressive and smash these guys all day.
“It wouldn’t make sense to tell a plan on TV,” said Pedersen past-stage. “Sometimes we have to bluff.” Trickery, subterfuge, black magic — Pedersen brings it all to the fight.
In the end, as the entire peloton barreled into Chalon-sur-Saône, Pedersen did not succeed in slowing down Tim Merlier, who blasted past everyone. But he still managed to score 20 points for finishing 9th. His haul for the day: 40 total points. “I scored the maximum points I could. I’m super proud of the team,” said Pedersen
Mads is working, people. He’s the hardest working man in green jersey showbiz.
Mads Pedersen 357 points
Binian Girmay 317 points
Jasper Philipsen 311 points
Tim Merlier 307 points