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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- They went into the race as co-leaders!frieders323-03-2025
- He can win that sprint if he plays it right but leaving tha gap was ridiculous ! A spring after 6+ hours isn't a guarantee for MVDPfrieders323-03-2025
- The climbs are steeper on Flanders giving Pogi the advanatge as we saw before when he won!frieders323-03-2025
- VDP is best in a short sprint, so Pog was purposely leaving a gap in hopes that VDP wouldn't have enough to sprint for 310 meters at the end of 300 KM. Kwiatkowski did the same thing to Sagan at that same point and won because of it.acem8223-03-2025
- Ganna started winning the occasional end of season sprint a few years ago. It's been fun watching him change from a TT specialist into something more.RidesHills23-03-2025
- hey look, an insinuating question from 2 years ago! I mean, sure, announcers mentioned tail wind, but whatever. That wasn't going to matter today, not with the 2 best classics riders of the past many generations (you have to go back to the 70s to see two people dominate like this, and even Merckx and de Vlaeminck never managed to win 2 each in the same year, the way Pogacar and Van der Poel have done in the past 2 years).RidesHills23-03-2025
- I like my statistics: Pogacar and van der Poel have won 13 of the last 18 Monuments and are tied at 7 each (MvdP won his first long enough ago that it doesn't show the more recent utter domination.) Oh, and the last 2 road world championships. Oh, and one of them also won the last Tour and Giro, while the other won the CX and Gravel world championships. I mean, anyone reading this site knows all this, but it's worth being amazed by it all every now and then.RidesHills23-03-2025
- Congratulations to all three on the podium. The final seconds reminded me of E3 a few years back, when tiny little Pogacar had no chance against van Aert and van der Poel, but that was just the last few seconds of an incredible race. Everything from the launch on the Cipressa to crossing the line was amazing.RidesHills23-03-2025
- All 3 of them went to doping control
Front24223-03-2025 - What a race! To see these three going at it, Ganna so stellar between the two best Monuments riders of the past several years (now tied at 7 each - what a rivalry!), Pogacar trying everything, van der Poel patient yet also throwing in that startling attack - who expected an attack on the Cipressa to be this good?! Just re-watched it, and even knowing the outcome it was great to watch. Fabulous!RidesHills23-03-2025