Mads Pedersen is back! Dane outsprints Matej Mohoric to take victory on stage 2 of Tour de la Provence 2025

On a frantic day of attacking on stage 2 of the 2025 Tour de la Provence, Mads Pedersen has outsprinted Matej Mohoric in a two-up sprint for glory, moving into the overall race lead in the process.

Four riders remained out ahead of the peloton heading into the final 50m kilometres, including Matis Louvel of Israel - Premier Tech and Mattéo Vercher of Team TotalEnergies. At 32km to go though, the catch had been fully completed and the peloton's sprinters were put into survival mode as the rest of the peloton attempted to drop the likes of race leader Sam Bennett on the Cat 1 Col de l'Aire dei Masco before the finale.

Mads Pedersen however, decided that attack was the best form of defence, accelerating clear at the front of the bunch. By the top of the climb, Pedersen had been joined by Sander De Pestel and Jefferson Alexander Cepeda, as the Bahrain - Victorious duo of Matej Mohoric and Fred Wright led the chase behind.

The cooperation wasn't great within the leading trio and as such, with 18km to go, they were joined by the Bahrain led chasing group. That wasn't the end of the attacks though, with Pedersen again riding clear at around 17km to go, this time joined by Mohoric. Heading into the final 10km, the superstar duo had around 45 seconds lead over the chasers, who were on the verge of being caught by the peloton, although notably, Sam Bennett was not among them.

With Pedersen and Mohoric continuing to roll through and work well together, they were actually extending their lead over the EF Education-EasyPost led chase, 50 seconds at just over 5km to go. In the final kilometre, the sprint for the stage win began and Pedersen took it from the front. Despite Mohoric's best efforts, he couldn't come around as the Dane took the stage win and moved into the overall lead of the race.