Monstrous Mads Pedersen takes 3rd career Gent Wevelgem win with incredible 55km+ solo!

Mads Pedersen has put in a monstrous ride at Gent Wevelgem 2025 to take victory at the iconic Belgian classic for the third time in his illustrious career. The Dane first attacked with more than 60km to go, riding solo for around 55km in a Pogacar/Van der Poel-esque display by the Lidl-Trek leader.

A group of nine riders got themselves up the road and away from the drama of the peloton into the breakaway early on. Those being: Rui Oliveira, Max Walker, Sam Maisonobe, Jasha Sutterlin, Emils Liepins, Victor Vercouillie, Samuel Leroux, Alexys Brunel and Marco Haller. As the wind started to cause chaos in the peloton behind however, with 100km to go, the breakaway's advantage was already down to less than a minute.

In that echelon drama, notably both Jasper Philipsen and Tim Merlier had both been caught out behind, missing out on the front group of the split peloton. Although things did ultimately come back together and regroup, the tension levels had been significantly raised for a few of the pre-race favourites. With the gap having been cut to the break, Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Victor Campenaerts sensed an opportunity and attacked out of the peloton, bridging across to the break.

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The front of the peloton ignited again on the Kemmelberg with over 80km to go. By the end of the section, an elite group of six including Biniam Girmay, Florian Vermeersch, Toms Skujins, Ben Turner, Tiesj Benoot and others breaking free. After they were brought back though, Mads Pedersen then launched his move and almost simultaneously, disaster struck for Jasper Philipsen and Olav Kooij as the former suffered an ill-timed mechanical and the latter crashed out. Although Philipsen was able to get back to the main peloton, Kooij sadly abandoned.

Pedersen meanwhile was on a mission and on the second ascent of the Kemmelberg, with just under 60km to go, the Dane accelerated again, splitting the breakaway apart and flying clear solo. By the time the Dane reached 40km to go, he'd extended his advantage to over a minute on his nearest chasers, with the main peloton around 1:40 down on the Lidl-Trek leader.

Although that gap reached two minutes at one point, heading into the final 25km, the peloton had drawn back to around 1:30. Pedersen's Lidl-Trek teammates though, were doing their level best to disrupt any semblance of an organised chase. With Pedersen then boosted by a strong tailwind heading into the finale, teams such as Uno-X Mobility and Soudal - Quick-Step finally started working inside the final 15km. As Pedersen moved through 10km to go though, he still led the peloton by more than 1:20.

Around that distance is where time gap stayed too, with Pedersen holding on for an incredible solo win. In the sprint behind for 2nd and 3rd, it was Tim Merlier and Jonathan Milan that completed the podium of the day.

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