Mads Pedersen wins Gent Wevelgem with a play out of Pogacar's book: "He doesn’t have to think about tactics and attacks in the end"

Mads Pedersen's triumph at Gent Wevelgem was without a doubt one of the most impressive in his career, where he was already marked out as the strongest man but still made the difference on the road, and by himself rode to a solo victory over a strong peloton - mimicking the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar.

“I don’t always sit on the bike with Mathieu in mind, no. It’s not easy to win races, even when he’s not there. Then we’re still racing at full speed. So I didn’t miss him, no," Pedersen said in words to Wielerflits after this Sunday's triumph.

The reason why he attacked so much is not a mystery: “You want to avoid ending up in a difficult final. It’s not necessarily physically easier, because I would have been happy to ride to the finish with five of us and sprint.”

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The Dane had the legs and after a formidable E3 Saxo Classic, he wasn't afraid to attack over and over again until he left the peloton. Then, he dropped the escapee group on the penultimate Kemmelberg climb, and rode to Wevelgem by himself with a tailwind that assisted his third triumph in the Belgian classic.

“But it’s definitely easier for someone like Tadej to go solo. It’s not for nothing that he does that everywhere he races," Pedersen explains, praising the man he will challenge in Flanders and Roubaix, and taking a piece out of his playbook towards success and a memorable victory.

"He doesn’t have to think about tactics and attacks in the end, because he would have to close all the gaps anyway. It’s really easier for someone like him to go solo. But don’t expect me to do that every time. That works out once in a million".

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