"We knew Visma would go there but they made it impossible to tag along" - Mads Pedersen unable to respond to Visma's raid on Berg Ten Houte
Cycling
Mads Pedersen didn't get to raise his hands again at Dwars door Vlaanderen despite his good legs. One small tactical mistake meant that he'd never get to join the battle for victory again as Visma | Lease a Bike blew up the race on Berg Ten Houte with nearly 70 kilometers to go.
"I was just too far behind. I got boxed in a little bit on the right side of the road and they went a little earlier than I expected," Pedersen told Eurosport afterwards.
The Dane can appreciate his opponents' tactics that nearly secured them a perfect race. "It was super smart from them," Pedersen explains: "Visma stretched it out and made it basically impossible to move up and join the fun when they attacked."
Not that it was a surprise for Pedersen that attack would come at this point of the race. At the pre-race briefing in the Lidl-Trek team bus, this sector was highlighted as a danger zone. But when it came to responding to Visma's expected raid, it was just not possible. "We were actually quite confident knowing Visma would go there, but we just didn't manage to go with them and that was a big mistake. We did our best to try to control the damage, but we weren't able to."
Behind, Mads Pedersen was eventually able to force split a select group of six riders that still had decent chance of catching the front four, however the co-operation there simply wasn't ideal. Therefore a fifth place was maximum for the former World Champion who will have a new opportunity to strike this weekend with Second monument of the season on the menu.
"It happens, we'll try again on Sunday but the legs are still there. It's another top-5 in a Classic, so can't complain too much. I'm just happy I stayed on the bike today and didn't lose my form heading into Tour of Flanders where I'll try again."
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- His basic attitude always has been (and we know age often reinforces inherent values), if I’m going down I’m going to try taking you with me.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- I know it’s tradition and nice but to make the discussion more interesting, if an Arkea rider had driven up to tell Alpecin or UAE to ease off for Mozzato or Vauquelin having a P, would they have been as gentlemanly?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- That’s probably about right although if they’d talked it over it would have been in all their interests to work together to chase Pog down because those 4 arriving at the finish in that scenario would have left all 4 with a chance of victory.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- Exactly, that easily makes for a minute at the front. You don’t see Pog cracking often either (less often than MVDP even) but when he does it’s lights out and over too. This is completely normal and to be expected, at the level of competitiveness all these guys are they only crack once they’ve pushed beyond their manageable limit and there’s no coming back from that. When your rival forces you into the red to keep or catch up, it’s over, in that respect, well done to WVA who seems to be world champion in staying just outside the red for as long as he can.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- If I remember well, Pidcock slowed, whether out of respect or strategically or just happy he could ease off a bit, only he knows. Your point?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- I believe Mathieu rather gets beaten by a stronger rider than one who raced smarter. That is why he wanted to team up with Pogacar to drop the JV riders and Mads who were not helping in the chase of the first group since they had a teammate up front.JoostMehrtens08-04-2025
- Just shows that LA is not truly repentant. JUSTICE was served. No winner, no second , no third on the podium for those 7 years. No real winners could be determined, ever. Lance got to keep most of his money , he really should can it . He is toxic to cycling.dave08-04-2025
- Tricky one as while I agree Pogi and UAE are simply faster over a long distance which means Visma and MVP need to be as smart with energy use as can, it's also been proven in the past that one way for Pogi to be beaten is relentless attacks, to put him into the red. However that does require a rider to as good as sacrifice themselves for that one move which makes riskHoopoeChai07-04-2025
- Even if not technically against the rules, this is just bad etiquette and frankly I hope the rest of pelaton remembers Arkea don't care about etiquette or honoring tradition which means they shouldn't benifit from it.HoopoeChai07-04-2025
- The other issue is that Mad Petersen and Wout would have let MVDP do most of the work, as he kept showing he was stronger. MVDP did the strategy with the highest likelihood of victory, he just wasn't strong enough.acem8207-04-2025