"The priority was to help Skjelmose" - Mads Pedersen explains self-sacrifice at La Vuelta
CyclingThursday, 27 August 2026 at 06:00
Mads Pedersen was one of the favourites to win stage 5 of the Vuelta a España this Wednesday, but was surprisingly dropped early on and couldn't fight for a result. The Danish rider explained that he didn't have many hopes of sprinting, despite having an almost tailor-made day for him.
Pedersen takes up the responsibility in the crosswinds
“As I said before the stage, the priority was to help Skjelmose,” Pedersen said in an interview with TV2 following the stage. Pedersen was dropped during the hilly section of yesterday's stage of the Vuelta, which had him and Matthew Brennan as favourites.
But how could this be? Pedersen, the recent green jersey winner at the Tour de France, is one of the sprinters who climbs best in the peloton. The difficulties were explained by his own decision to work for Mattias Skjelmose - eighth on GC and the German team's leader.
“We never really got proper crosswinds, but the race was ridden as if there were crosswinds, and that still costs a lot of energy when you’re doing that work," he said. Despite this race situation, it was Pedersen himself, and not one of the team's six other riders, who kept Skjelmose in position during a tense phase of the race.
Because of this work, he didn't have it at the end. "There isn’t much left when you have to ride like that and then try to stay with the group afterwards.”
The unexpected race situation caught team DS Kim Andersen off guard: "We hadn't discussed the fact that he wouldn't be able to compete," essentially confirming Pedersen was not racing according to the team's overall plan, which would've been to contest the final sprint.
Mads Pedersen working at the head of a compact peloton
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Pedersen didn't plan on fighting for a sprint
But the 30-year old had little hopes of racing for a sprint. The stage did end in one, with Matthew Brennan beating Jordi Meeus in a flat arrival, one in which plenty sprinters were present. Pedersen was absent in what was one of his best opportunities to take a stage win at this Vuelta.
“I knew it was going to be a hard day, and I don’t think I had particularly high hopes of making it to the finish and sprinting because I knew I would have to do so much work for Mattias today," he explained.
In Pedersen's point of view, the priority of the day was Skjelmose's overall classification, and there was no secondary objective: “All in all, it’s fine. He didn’t lose any time, so everything went as it should.”
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
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Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
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