Mads Pedersen takes sizzling Tour de France stage 4
Another extreme heat day in Foix as Pedersen winswhile the GC boys chill. Kinda.
Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen is hot.
No, I mean red hot, sizzling, scorched, on fire …
He’s hot because he just won his third Tour de France stage and hot because, well, it’s 104 degrees Fahrenheit. For reference, Dubai was 103 and Riyadh a 107 today. Il fait tres chaud!
The stage from Carcassonne to Foix was cooking, the hottest stage in Tour de France history. Most of the ice cubes in France were going down the jerseys of the riders. TV Commentator Christian Vande Velde, following the action by moto, said it was 107 degrees.
Which makes you wonder — where was Didi the Tour Devil? If anyone should enjoy this global warming treat, it’s a guy who spends most of his time in Hell.
Mads Pedersen was the big favorite on a guaranteed breakaway stage. In fact, every rider in the 30 man escape thought they had a chance to win. Tadej Pogacar and his arch rival Jonas Vingegaard had decided to chill — I use the term with some irony — in the peloton about 12 minutes back.
Once Mads made it over the Col de Montségur (6.9 km at 6.6%), he was pretty much golden. The break had shrunk to ten riders and he had both Mathias Vacek and Quinn Simmons to chase down attacks and keep the pace high.
And remember, this is a guy who has the most unique indoor training bike workout. He dresses in warm clothing and doesn’t use a fan to keep himself cool. He describes it as “terrible but terribly effective.”
So if anyone could deal with extreme heat, it was Pedersen. He probably thought today was just “warm-ish",” mildly “toasty.”
Sure, he had to deal with some stress. The Movistar duo of Raúl García Pierna and Pablo Castrillo Zapater attacked repeatedly but were always brought back. There was also the threat of Sean Quinn (EF Education-Easy Post).
And let’s not forget young Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) who began the stage with a GC deficit of five minutes. Once that gap went over 10 minutes, he was taking the yellow jersey. Could he also ruin Pedersen’s sure thing?
Sidebar: Think about that bizarre occurrence: a guy from cold weather Norway grabbing the maillot jaune on the hottest Tour day ever. That’s just bonkers.
But back to Pedersen. Once he opened his sprint, it was game over. The other guys were so fried that Mads’ teammate Quinn Simmons was able to steal second place.
Chapeau and a big bag of ice, Mads.