"Anything above 450 watts was too much for him" - Lidl-Trek DS appreciates gutsy performance by Mads Pedersen

Despite being beat up badly after high-speed crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Mads Pedersen to the war at Tour of Flanders with long-range attacks, throwing away a lot of energy. Lidl-Trek DS Steven de Jongh explained his actions to WielerFlits afterwards.

"We hoped that Mads would still be okay," De Jongh began his story about Lidl-Trek's tactics. "And we had Jonathan Milan, who rode well, and Tom Skujins. But Johnny didn't have a good day."

"Mads also quickly indicated that he was not at his best, so he wanted to try to improve anyway. He persisted because he said: 'Something could happen behind here too, I might get another hole.' He said: 'If I stay in that group, I will be dropped anyway'. It was also good training for him for next week. Let's hope that all wounds will have healed by then."

Pedersen rode away with Gianni Vermeersch with two hours of racing ahead. However the two never got more than 30 seconds. De Jongh already knew that it would be a difficult story. "Certainly because Alpecin continued to pace and then a number of other teams took over. Mads also said: 'I can drop back, but then I will also get dropped'. So yes, he felt that anything above 450 watts was too much for him. He couldn't go deep. That was just the impact of the blow."