"Jonas will win the Tour de France" - Mads Pedersen is impressed by the level of his compatriot

Mads Pedersen is currently resting after the successful Giro d'Italia campaign. That means he had enough time to watch his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard fly on the opening stage of Criterium du Dauphiné. Even though the brave attack wasn't rewarded with a sweer victory, the Lidl-Trek star was pleasantly surprised by the level of two-time Tour de France champion.

"It was an insane stage. It was good to see. Great to see Jonas again. He's entering Pogacar's own territory, so it could be that Tadej didn't expect this," said Pedersen in the podcast Lang Distance.

Pedersen saw that even Pogacar hesitated for a moment when Vingegaard unleashed his horses. "You can see that Tadej has the time to think: 'What the hell is happening here, what is this?' He also didn't close that gap as easily as he might have thought. You really saw him grit his teeth to close that gap. Great Jonas. Great, great, great, great," Pedersen applauds his compatriot.

Despite his effort, Vingegaard was unable to win the sprint against faster men in the group. Pedersen is not in the slightest bit concerned by that. "He has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Imagine if he had won the stage... You wouldn't have believed it with that group. Crazy, brilliant. Even though they didn't win a single second."

After seeing the level of Vingegaard, his compatriot has no doubts that the Tour de France score will be tied at 3-3 in July again. "I'll just throw it out there: Jonas wins the Tour," he sounded confidently.