Third within the Vélodrome André-Pétrieux, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) can go away this yr’s quick and arduous race each happy with a career-best consequence and with the satisfaction, too, of being higher positioned than some other Roubaix rider who wasn’t clad within the fake denim of Alpecin-Deceuninck.
The Lidl-Trek racer crossed the road in Roubaix precisely three minutes after repeat winner Mathieu van der Poel, some 60km after he final noticed the World Champion out on the highway. The ultimate metres of the race pitted him head-to-head in opposition to Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), himself a podium finisher final spring.
Philipsen, nevertheless, had the advantage of sitting on wheels within the chase whereas Pedersen was pressured to place in work attempting to maintain Van der Poel inside grasp, and so the Belgian had greater than sufficient pace to finish a second one-two in a row for his staff.
After the race, Pedersen mentioned he was delighted to have the ability to step onto the rostrum, even when the consequence introduced him two locations decrease than his dream consequence on the Hell of the North.
“To be sincere, I’m actually comfortable. Mathieu was in a unique league right this moment and the way in which he was racing was actually spectacular,” Pedersen mentioned within the post-race press convention.
“For me it is exhausting to beat Jasper in a standard race dash so, fuck, magic ought to occur if I have been to beat him in a dash in a race like right this moment. So I’m comfortable.
“I’ve zero excuses right this moment. I used to be undoubtedly at 100%,” he added, referring to his crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen final week, earlier than concluding, “I used to be overwhelmed by higher boys.”
Pedersen got here into the race as the highest favorite after the Alpecin-Deceuninck duo, main a Lidl-Trek line-up shorn of Jasper Stuyven and Alex Kirsch – each additionally caught within the Dwars crash – however nonetheless stuffed with skills equivalent to Jonathan Milan, Mathias Vacek, and Tim Declercq.
Milan’s involvement within the race could have been sadly temporary, with the Italian leaving the race shortly after getting caught in a mass crash inside the opening 40km. But Vacek was a useful support to Pedersen on the head of the race, placing in work on the entrance after Pedersen punctured out of the lead group simply after the Arenberg.
Pedersen mentioned that having Milan round deeper into the race would’ve helped him.
“I’m fairly positive it could’ve modified so much,” he mentioned of his teammate.
“So when he crashed early within the race it was shit for us and a ache within the ass. We cannot change it. I have never talked with him but, however I hope he is okay.
“But within the chase, everybody was principally going flat out as a result of we wished to catch [Van der Poel] once more,” Pedersen added.
“At one level when he was simply gaining time and gaining time, we have been type of doing a second race behind. We additionally wished to choose in our group, make it smaller and smaller.
“Everyone was dedicated and going flat out- possibly he’d have a puncture or no matter, so that you by no means know… The race is just not over when he leaves, however right this moment it was.”
Once Van der Poel had blasted off 60km from the end on the three-star sector of Orchies, Pedersen discovered himself racing alongside Philipsen, Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates), and Groupama-FDJ duo Laurence Pithie and Stefan Küng.
The latter pair would fall away earlier than the end, with Pithie crashing out of the group and Küng dropped on the ultimate strategy to Roubaix.
The slimmed-down group left Pedersen together with his best-ever likelihood of constructing the rostrum, one he duly took in opposition to the weaker sprinter Politt.
“We have been nonetheless going all out within the ultimate,” he mentioned. “Philipsen went on the sector after the Carrefour de l’Arbre after which Kung acquired dropped so there have been solely three of us left. From then on, Jasper wished to drag.
“At that second I additionally knew that Jasper is a tricky man to beat, and he additionally had spent just a few kilometres on the wheels the place we have been pulling. So, it was additionally type of settling in to dash for third.”
“I knew that Nils was on the restrict however so was I. I trusted my dash sufficient to know that it was attainable to beat Nils not less than.”
172 males set out in Compiègne with the dream of profitable Paris-Roubaix on Sunday morning. Mads Pedersen beat 169 of them. And as for figuring out how one can add Mathieu van der Poel to that checklist? That’ll have to attend.
“Today I attempted to do higher, however [Van der Poel] was spectacular, and I simply could not comply with. So how one can beat him in a Monument? I simply do not know but.”
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