{"id":346362,"date":"2025-12-13T23:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T23:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/346362\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T23:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T23:56:07","slug":"last-year-i-accepted-not-going-to-the-tour-now-he-accepts-that-mads-pedersen-aims-for-tour-de-france-green-jersey-as-jonathan-milan-poised-for-giro-ditalia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/346362\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Last year I accepted not going to the Tour, now he accepts that’ – Mads Pedersen aims for Tour de France green jersey as Jonathan Milan poised for Giro d’Italia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mads Pedersen will be back to lead the line for Lidl-Trek at the Tour de France<\/a> in 2026 after a year of compromise. Jonathan Milan, winner of the points classification at the 2025 Tour, is heading to the Giro d’Italia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media at the team\u2019s December training camp media day in D\u00e9nia, Spain, Pedersen explained that a reciprocal agreement had been reached for him to step aside in 2025 to give Milan his chance, on the condition that the Danish former world champion return to the Tour in 2026.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Milan certainly seized his opportunity in July, claiming two stage wins on his way to the green jersey. Meanwhile Pedersen raced the Giro d\u2019Italia in May, winning four stages and the points classification before heading to La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> and taking away a stage win and the points jersey once more.<\/p>\n

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Pedersen won two stages of the Tour de France in 2022 and 2023 and has been clear that the green jersey is his next big goal at the French Grand Tour. He came closest in 2023, when he was runner-up to Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuncinck).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a big wish of mine for many years to win the Green Jersey. Trying to do that with Jonny is not easy,\u201d Pedersen told members of the press including Cyclingnews on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year it was a smart decision to bring Jonny to the Tour and send me to the Giro. Now it\u2019s his turn to compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, Lidl-Trek have the added consideration of Juan Ayuso, who broke his contract with UAE Team Emirates-XRG over the winter to become the German team\u2019s top general classification leader<\/a>. The 21-year-old Spaniard will also head to the Tour in 2026 and has stated an aim to reach the podium<\/a> in Paris.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe also have Ayuso now,\u201d Pedersen added. \u201cLast year I accepted not going to the Tour. Now he [Milan] accepts that he\u2019s not going and does something else. That\u2019s how a big team works.\u201d<\/p>\n

In pursuit of a monument<\/p>\n

Despite a glittering palmar\u00e8s that includes a world championship win from 2018, eleven Grand Tour stages and three victories at Gent-Wevelgem, Pedersen has always asserted that his career will not feel complete without a win in a Monument Classic. That, once again, will be the main thrust of his early 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The problem for Pedersen, is that his star has risen in an era of super-talents such as Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who between them collected all five major one-day races in 2025.<\/p>\n

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However, despite their dominance, Pedersen still believes that he can beat the two best Classics riders of this generation on his best day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fully aware that these guys have bigger talent and are better riders than me. But on specific days, I believe it\u2019s possible to beat them. I\u2019ve shown it before,\u201d Pedersen says referring to his bettering of Van der Poel at the Tour of Flanders in 2025 where he finished second behind Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it\u2019s easy to sit here afterwards and say if and if and if. But every time I\u2019m on the start line with these guys, I\u2019m there because I believe I can beat them. If I didn\u2019t believe that, I should do something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in Roubaix. That\u2019s my dream race. That\u2019s why I\u2019m hired by this team, to try to win these races. If I didn\u2019t believe I could win, why should my team believe I could win either?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mads Pedersen will be back to lead the line for Lidl-Trek at the Tour de France in 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-346362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}