A very close sprint finish on #ParisNice stage 1 😮💨 Second on the line for @Mads__Pedersen today in Les Mureaux 💪 with @skjelmose_ home in 8th place 👊
Remco Evenepoel's attack may have cost Mads Pedersen Paris-Nice victory: "It went quite fast and I had to go deep"
CyclingMonday, 04 March 2024 at 11:20
Mads Pedersen rode very strongly on the opening day of Paris-Nice but couldn't take the victory. This was a mix of responding to an early attack of Remco Evenepoel and a sprinted launched too soon, which had the Dane narrowly missing out on the first yellow jersey of the race.
“The stage didn't go as planned. We thought it would be more of a real bunch sprint. In the end there were still fifty or sixty in the peloton, but I think about twenty of them only came back in the last kilometers," Pedersen said in a postrace interview. "When the classification riders started with a bonus sprint fifteen kilometers before the finish, the race broke loose and it was important to stay at the front. For me it was good that Skjelly and Jasper (Mattias Skjelmose and Jasper Stuyven, ed.) were still in the group, so that we didn't have to fight to get back.”
The day's climbs forced some sprinters into letting go of the peloton, an advantage for the leader of Lidl-Trek. But the threat of an attack going to the finish also meant Pedersen burnt important matches: “I don't want to say that I was in control when Remco attacked: it went quite fast and I had to go deep. But I was one of the few sprinters still at the front and didn't have to fight to get back. That was a good feeling. As always, the guys did a great job.”
A sprint followed with Jasper Stuyven doing the leadout for the peloton, but Pedersen had to start his sprint quite early, and Olav Kooij in the final straight managed to take advantage of that. “In the end I was beaten by someone who was faster. That's how it is. In an ideal scenario, I could have started my sprint fifty to a hundred meters later and I believe I would have won," he admits. "But the shape is still good. And the last fifteen kilometers it was a tough race, so that's good.”
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