"Had to fight like a motherf*cker to get back" - Mads Pedersen survives late puncture only to see breakaway take the stage on opening day of the Tour of Denmark

The opening stage of the 2023 Tour of Denmark had been expected to end in a bunch sprint. Winner Soren Waerenskjold had other ideas however, making all the hard work of Mads Pedersen to get back in touch late on for nothing.

"I changed my wheel with Daan Hoole's and then just had to fight like a motherf*cker to get back," Pedersen said in typical Pedersen fashion post-stage. "There were no cars, there was nothing."

Perhaps because of his immense effort to get back, the Lidl-Trek sprinter was beaten by Soudal - Quick-Step's Fabio Jakobsen in the sprint for second behind the lone leader. “It was just fighting and going full throttle for a lap. I managed to get back and just stuck to the plan we had set up: full throttle on that shorter climb, but I didn't have much left after I had already lost a lot of strength coming back," he recaps.

"In the end it was a good day," he concludes nevertheless. "We knew it would be difficult to sprint against Fabio, but we were riding for second at the end. Kudos to Waerenskjold, that was a nice victory for him."