"I felt this would be a horrible day" - Mads Pedersen thrives in the rain, cold and chaos to finally win at Paris-Nice

Mads Pedersen is a rider that withstands the brutal conditions that at times the peloton goes through and today he proved just how valuable he is. He was a key part of the team's plan to take Mattias Skjelmose back to the podium in the echelons, and later on finally took a stage win after a race where virtually everyday he had been in the spotlight.

"After such a tough day like today it's nice to win. It would be a pity to be second or third. It's super nice to get a victory home with the team and also Skjelmose moving up in GC. For us it was a perfect day," the Dane said in a post-race interview. Early in the race he had a dispute with his team over a flawed leadout, and now in the past two hilly stages he worked fully in support of Mattias Skjelmose in both occasions with tremendous efficiency.

However he hadn't obtained the result he came here for, and today was the last realistic opportunity. Hence when Team Visma | Lease a Bike completely split the peloton with over 50 kilometers to go, Pedersen and Skjelmose were two of the few riders who managed to jump across. "It was really nice to come back and have a victory. I knew if we would come here with Tim Merlier in a clean sprint it would be hard to win so this was ideal".

The group, led mostly by Visma and INEOS who had extensive numbers up front, managed to get almost two minutes over the chasing peloton including some of Skjelmose's rivals such as UAE's Almeida and McNulty - whilst yesterday's winner Lenny Martínez lost complete touch with the GC fight.

"I felt this would be a horrible day. No-one likes to race in 5 or 6 degrees in rain. It was a tough day, I just don't care when it's weather like this but I really don't enjoy it," he says. "I enjoyed now after the race and it's a victory in the pocket so it's nice". In the final sprint, one completely out of the ordinary, the Dane managed to beat Joshua Tarling and Axel Zingle to take his third win of the season.

He was surprised by Tarling's proximity in the final sprint. "No, it was pretty cold and the body didn't react as normal. in the end I did a long sprint but Tarling is so strong. Never take him out of the race even in a sprint like this. In the end I'm just happy I won. If you win with 1 centimeter or half a meter it doesn't matter," he concluded.