The thought was to outflank and outnumber Mathieu van der Poel, however within the finale of Gent-Wevelgem, Mads Pedersen nonetheless confronted one thing akin to a contemporary labour of Hercules, specifically a head-to-head contest with the world champion.
Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek squad had raced with aggression and cohesion all afternoon, putting three males within the entrance group of seven that shaped after the primary ascent of the Kemmelberg, however a plan can solely deliver a workforce to this point at a race like this. Come the final hour or so of racing, Pedersen needed to discover his personal well beyond a seemingly insurmountable impediment.
If Pedersen was daunted by the duty, he didn’t present it. On the ultimate haul up the Kemmelberg, he opted to set the tempo himself, dialling up the tempo to distance their final remaining breakaway companion Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ). Above all, Pedersen needed to just do sufficient to dissuade Van der Poel from launching an acceleration of his personal.
“I didn’t need to attempt to drop Mathieu,” Pedersen mentioned when he took a seat within the media room afterwards. “Initially, I don’t imagine I’d have been in a position to try this, and second, if I had managed to drop him, I’m fairly certain he would have sat up and waited for the peloton. Then they’d have been there chasing with the entire workforce, and that wouldn’t have made sense in any respect.
“The final time on the Kemmel, I didn’t look again. I simply needed to make it arduous sufficient so he wouldn’t assault. I remembered his assault from [the Tour of Flanders] final yr, and it undoubtedly put me on the restrict, so I needed to keep away from that. I didn’t know if he was totally on the restrict or not. I do know I used to be on the restrict, and I used to be simply hoping he had a tough time there as properly.”
Van der Poel would later reveal that he was struggling to carry Pedersen’s wheel at that time, and the Dutchman confessed that he already had a sinking feeling about his prospects in a two-up dash 35km later. Pedersen wasn’t to know that on the time, after all, and the 2 struck a standard accord over the opposite aspect of the Kemmel. Having rid themselves of the harmful Pithie, they had been now content material to share the workload on the flat highway to Wevelgem.
“We type of requested one another if we had been proud of the state of affairs and if we might work collectively or begin to assault one another,” Pedersen defined of the temporary parley that was captured by the tv cameras.
“It will have been a bit too early to assault one another. We had already agreed to place Pithie on the restrict so he would blow up, and we had been hoping we may acquire a while earlier than the fellows within the peloton may organise themselves. We needed to trip collectively within the crosswind to verify we might have sufficient time earlier than we swung into the tailwind part. It labored out properly sufficient.”
That was one thing of an understatement, although Pedersen nonetheless had loads to do within the remaining kilometre. With a peloton containing his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jasper Philipsen closing quickly, Van der Poel parked himself on Pedersen’s rear wheel beneath the flamme rouge.
Though Pedersen didn’t realise the chasers had been so shut at hand, he was canny sufficient to maintain the tempo excessive, aware of Van der Poel’s prodigious means to speed up from low speeds, the very trick that helped him outmanoeuvre Tadej Pogačar on the 2022 Tour of Flanders.
“I needed to do considered one of my lengthy sprints and never let him shock me,” Pedersen defined. “That was the very last thing I needed as we speak, to have him opening the dash. I do know I’m good at lengthy sprints. I simply needed to belief that as we speak and hope it will be sufficient.
Lidl-Trek
This cobbled Classics marketing campaign has been billed by most as a straight duel between Van der Poel and Wout van Aert – who did not line up at Gent-Wevelgem – however Lidl-Trek’s collective power has been one of the vital hanging points of the Spring up to now. They continued in the same vein right here.
They had been properly represented when the peloton first break up within the crosswinds at De Moeren with 150km to go, they usually had been once more to the fore when Van der Poel ran by his scales on the primary ascent of the Kemmelberg, with Pedersen joined by teammates Jasper Stuyven and Jonathan Milan within the entrance group of seven.
The plain tactic at that time was to assault Van der Poel in flip, with Milan the primary of the Lidl-Trek males to go on the offensive. A most premature puncture for Jasper Stuyven on the Plugstreets, nonetheless, pressured them to revise their technique on the hoof.
“It was a little bit of a shit,” Pedersen smiled ruefully. “The puncture got here in a extremely dangerous second, as a result of Jonny had put good stress on, and we had been able to maintain attacking.”
Regardless of, Pedersen’s eventual victory, his second at Gent-Wevelgem after his 2020 triumph, was a reward for his or her enterprising strategy. The previous world champion has made no secret of his ambition so as to add a Monument to his palmarès, and his disappointment was palpable after putting fourth at Milan-San Remo final weekend.
Victory right here presents ample compensation, and it additionally locations Pedersen firmly among the many favourites for the Tour of Flanders. He positioned second within the Ronde on his debut in 2018, in spite of everything, and he was third behind the unassailable Pogačar and Van der Poel a yr in the past.
“Yeah, however nonetheless fairly removed from the win. A victory all the time provides confidence, however I additionally know Flanders is a distinct race, it’s actually robust for me. Paris-Roubaix fits me higher,” mentioned Pedersen, who insisted his workforce’s collaborative strategy to management would stay in place for the following two weekends.
“We’re driving as a workforce, we don’t have one particular chief. With a powerful group like ours, it wouldn’t make sense to have the assembly the day earlier than and say, ‘We’re driving for this man.’ A lot can occur in a Traditional and particularly in Flanders. If the workforce tells me to place the stress on for the opposite guys, I’ll do it. They pay my wage. I do no matter they inform me to do.”
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