"We wanted Mathias Vacek to win the stage" - Mads Pedersen full of praise for teammate following fantastic 5th stage win for Lidl-Trek at 2025 Giro d'Italia

Mads Pedersen has been the standout rider at the 2025 Giro d'Italia and on stage 13, the Dane powered to his 4th victory of the race - 5th for the Lidl-Trek team in total. Afterwards, Pedersen had nothing but praise for his teammates, singling out Mathias Vacek in particular with his comments.

"We wanted Mathias to win the stage because he deserves it," began the Maglia Ciclamino's post-stage reflections, noting how Vacek had followed a late Romain Bardet attack and actually began the final climb clear at the front of the race. "If there had been a little more hesitation in the peloton, he and Bardet would have had 25 to 30 seconds, and then I would have been sure they could have made it."

Ultimately though, that wasn't the case and once Vacek and Bardet had been caught, Pedersen himself powered to victory with a truly exceptional uphill sprint in the finale. "It was the ideal situation for us because he took the opportunity to win the stage, and we could sit back and let the other teams do the work. It was perfect," Pedersen recounts. "The timing was instinctive. I had to go from the right and I did it a little earlier than we had actually planned. On such a tough uphill finish, that's sometimes okay because everyone's legs are burning."

In the process of taking his 4th stage win, Pedersen did of course, also extend his already massive lead in the Points Classification. The Dane is by no means celebrating a Maglia Ciclamino win already though. "It's still a long way to Rome," he concludes with a smile.