Mads Pedersen is back! Dane outsprints Matej Mohoric to take victory on stage 2 of Tour de la Provence 2025
Cycling
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.
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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.
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- poor kid, saddled with all that “next mvdp” crap. eeesh…OCexile03-04-2025
- I don't think so, maybe in a different GT, not in the Tour. Last year, to be 3rd, he would have to be better than Remco. And he wasn't, on any terrainvappaxbipmv03-04-2025
- Or sprinting, or against wind. I think by now they’ve optimised the tire tech and pressures to largely smooth out rider weight effects. BUT, I’m going to go through past podiums to see what weight distribution trends are to be spotted coz I’m curious now.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- I also wasn’t too impressed by the final lead out, they’ve got to practice that, Wout had far too long to ride alone but then again it seemed as if the lead-outs had themselves run out of steam too early which is what makes me believe none of them could have won, Powfull looked totally fresh and in the end it was just a case of him being stronger than the others, not much you can do against that, just like you can’t outdo MVDP in the end when he’s in shape.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Exactly, a rider (or sprinter in athletics) can’t even tell themselves when it will happen until it does. Obviously if you have an idea that could happen, you should maybe envisage testing your theory with perhaps an small sharp attack well before race-end.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Yes but 20 minutes as a domestique isn’t 20 minutes as a leader, and you know as well as anybody that Pog winning is in no way a guarantee. Granted, neither Pog nor Remco nor Jinas nor Primoz or some more winning starts to seem far-fetched but a podium would certainly be targetable if he doesn’t have to worry about Jonas.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- The final appeal he lost against his old team for « breaking » his contract.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- How exactly is that a good thing on cobbles or flat? Lower weight is only beneficial on a climbvappaxbipmv03-04-2025
- I said much better, not better. He probably will improve but right now he needs about 20 minutes of free time to win the Tour against Pogacar. And the was offered leadership in Giro and other races but turned it downvappaxbipmv03-04-2025
- If niermann this he can predict cramps, that would be helpful for a lot of people around the world. It was the standard strategy for Benoot and Jorgensen to attack and they should haveabstractengineer03-04-2025