It's not been an ideal few days at the 2024 Tour de France for Lidl-Trek's Mads Pedersen. After crashing hard in the sprint finale of stage 5, a battered, bruised and bandaged Dane was unable to contest for the win on stage 6.
To make matters worse for the 28-year-old, he wasn't allowed to head straight for the team bus to rest up, after stage 6 reached it's conclusion in a sprint won by Team Jayco AlUla's Dutch National Champion Dylan Groenewegen, with Pedersen crossing the line in 15th place.
The reason for Pedersen's delay in being able to rest? A well intentioned but ultimately unnecessary award given to the Dane by race organisers. Due to his battle against injury during the stage, Pedersen was awarded the prize for the Fighting Spirit on stage 6 of the 2024 Tour de France. Despite appreciating the gesture, it's fair to say that Pedersen wasn't completely delighted to receive the honour.
"I would have preferred to be in the shower," Pedersen said before the podium ceremony, in quotes collected by Het Nieuwsblad. "After four hours of racing I now have to waste another half hour of my time here. They should have given that prize to someone else, but I'll accept it with a smile, right? In the meantime my wounds are leaking again."
With stage 7 the first individual time-trial of this Grand Tour, Pedersen will at least be able to take things relatively easily as his words continue to recover from the stage 5 crash which could very easily have ended the Lidl-Trek star's race altogether. By the way, if you haven't yet seen Cofidis' Axel Zingle incredibly bunny hop over a strewn Pedersen at full speed, just moments after the crash in the frantic finale to stage 5, check it out right here!
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