"I stood there for over a minute before the car even reached me" - Mads Pedersen recalls 'shi*tty' Paris-Roubaix 2025 puncture

Mads Pedersen made no secret about the fact that his big goal for 2025 was Paris-Roubaix. The Dane arrived on the French cobbles in top form too and was able to showcase that for much of the day. Sadly though, any dreams the Lidl-Trek leader had of winning the race were ended by a disastrously timed puncture as he attempted to follow a Tadej Pogacar attack.

There was some talk that the puncture was Pedersen's own fault for moving into the dirt in order to follow the world champion. “Pedersen flatted while trying to close a gap after an attack by Pogacar. You could see he moved to the side and hit something. He was in a spot where the risk of a puncture is higher. So it was a consequence of reacting to Pogacar’s move,” Johan Bruyneel said on his The Move podcast for example. According to Pedersen himself however, that couldn't be further from the truth.

“I’ve heard all sorts of clever comments saying I punctured because I went into the gravel,” countered the former world champion on the Lang Distance podcast. “But the truth is, once you’ve punctured, you can’t ride on the cobbles anymore. I flatted well before I moved toward the edge.”

More than just the puncture itself, it was, as mentioned, the timing of the incident and the difficulty that the Lidl-Trek team car suffered in trying to get to their team leader that ended Pedersen's race-winning hopes. “It was just a fucking shitty place. The only spot on the course where the cars weren’t behind us,” Pedersen reflected ruefully. “People say, ‘Yeah, but Mathieu van der Poel punctured too.’ Sure - but he had the car right behind him. He lost 15 seconds with his puncture. I stood there for over a minute before the car even reached me. You couldn’t ask for worse timing.”

Creditably though, Pedersen didn't complete give up hope after his disaster. Instead, the Dane put his head down and slowly but surely worked his way back up through the field, picking off rider after rider and eventually managing to secure himself a spot on the final podium in Roubaix for the second straight year.