For riders who are used to winning, personal victory can become an obsession. You’re used to your team working solely for you, you always see records to beat, you feel you’ve attained the right to have things go your way.
For some riders that’s true, but not for Mads Pedersen. The Lidl-Trek star earnt his fourth stage win of this Giro d’Italia on Friday – breaking his personal record for wins in one Grand Tour. But just as he was overcome with joy for Daan Hoole’s TT victory, or willing to spend all his energy for Giulio Ciccone in the hills, Pedersen would have happily traded his stage 13 win for one for a teammate.
With 1km to go, it looked like that might just happen. Mathias Vacek, who has helped Pedersen to three sprint wins already and shone in his own right in the TTs and mountains, chipped off the front with Romain Bardet (Picnic PostNL) in the final.
“Today I would have given this victory away to Vacek if possible, for sure,” Pedersen told the press after winning the stage.
“This kid, he deserves so much to win a Grand Tour stage. All the work he has put in to be good for me, not only here but also in the Classics, it’s really crazy,” he continued, before paying tribute to his whole team.
“I’ve said it a lot of times, my teammates are also travelling 200 days a year, they’re also on training camps, they also train really hard to help me win, so guys like Vacek really deserve to win, because he can actually win stages in Grand Tours as well. Today I would have loved to have seen him make it to the finish line.”
In the end, the speed of the charging peloton meant that Vacek and Bardet were swept up on the climb, and the fact Lidl-Trek could sit back a bit surely helped Pedersen to win, but he was keen to point out that Vacek’s move was meant as a softener for Pedersen.
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“Trying to win the stage with him,” Pedersen answered when asked about the intention of the move. “He deserves it so much also, and if it would have been a little bit more hesitation in the peloton, then him and Bardet would have had 25, 30 seconds and I’m pretty sure they would have made it to the finish line.
“So that was ideal, he grabbed the chance of winning the stage, and then we could sit behind and let other teams keep a really high speed, so ideal situation for us.”
Vacek has looked extremely strong all Giro – all year, in fact – and is a hot pick to take a stage in this race, but explained that it was perhaps a mismatch between him and Bardet that stalled their chances in the finale on Friday.
“It actually wasn’t the plan to attack, but I just tried to follow Bardet in the downhill and at the bottom we had a small gap. I had information that I should go so I went with him, but he’s not that fast on the flat like me, so I was pulling and I was losing much more energy than him,” Vacek explained to Cycling Pro Net at the finish.
“In the last 600 metres they caught us, the bunch, and I could see that Mads was in a really good position and I really believed that he could pull it off today. Amazing teamwork again, and I tried it, I was close, but we won the stage with Mads and that’s super good also.”
Pedersen’s win marks Lidl-Trek’s fifth stage victory in this Giro, with more opportunities still to come. Far from taking the success for granted, the Dane is still taking in the emotions of his most successful Grand Tour yet.
“I’m just overwhelmed about winning again,” he said. “Right now I’m just happy with this one [win] and adding another 50 points to the ciclamino jersey. Let’s see how it goes, it’s still far to Rome.”
There’s another chance for a sprint tomorrow, where Pedersen should at least pick up some more sprint points, even if the totally flat finishes are less his forte, and then the next week will see him step into a support role for Ciccone and Vacek, something he’s already been doing on the harder stages.
Pedersen was full of praise and insight into Ciccone’s race, saying the pair are able to share the pressure in the team, and once again dispelling any idea that the Dane might be only focused on himself in this race.
“What I see from Cicco in this Giro is that he’s relaxed and when we have the possibilities of taking it easy in the peloton in the back or something like this, he’s really trusting us letting the fight go in the front and so on,” he said.
“He found this really fine balance of taking it easy and pushing the mental barrier, and also the physical one when he needs to. So I think it’s a new Cicco we see now, and I think he’s a main contender for a really good top GC in this Giro.”
But no matter how Ciccone’s GC campaign or the final week goes, Lidl-Trek already know that they are, in many ways, the best team in this race so far.
“We have now five stages and a lot of podiums so we are taking over the Giro I would say,” Vacek smiled.
For Pedersen, there is of course hunger to win more, or at least secure the ciclamino jersey, but there’s no sense of greed to keep racking up wins – only gratitude for what the team has already achieved.
“It’s an incredible race so far. If everything goes to shit tomorrow, we can still go home and be happy,” he concluded.
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