{"id":881761,"date":"2026-09-03T10:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/881761\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T10:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:02:11","slug":"pogacars-vuelta-withdrawal-affected-pedersens-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/881761\/","title":{"rendered":"Pogacar&#8217;s Vuelta withdrawal affected Pedersen&#8217;s decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/mads-pedersen\" title=\"Mads Pedersen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mads Pedersen<\/a> is out of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, but that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019ve heard the last of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/lidl-trek\" title=\"Lidl-Trek\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lidl-Trek<\/a> rider. The Danish powerhouse had hoped to use the Vuelta to build up his form for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/2026-world-cycling-championships-route-schedule-and-course-details-but-will-pogacar-feature\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">World Championships in Canada<\/a>, but Lidl-Trek insisted he pull out due to an infection.For a week and a half, Pedersen insisted that he still expected to be in good form, but just before the start of Stage 11, his name was ultimately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/mads-pedersen-quits-the-vuelta-a-espana-after-significant-doubts-turns-out-to-be-an-infection-so-antibiotics-needed\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">crossed off the start list<\/a>. \u201cAfter battling illness over the past few days, Mads will now focus on a full recovery before turning his attention to his remaining goals for this season,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LidlTrek\/status\/2095071227396174322\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Lidl-Trek wrote<\/a>.Pedersen didn&#8217;t want to abandon the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1aIt turned out to be the team that pushed Pedersen to give up. According to his co-leader Mattias Skjelmose, the team leader himself still wanted to keep going. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t pleasant for me to see Mads suffering like that. If the team hadn\u2019t told him to go home, he wouldn\u2019t have gone home,\u201d Skjelmose told <a href=\"https:\/\/ekstrabladet.dk\/sport\/cykling\/skjelmose-saa-mads-p.-lide-ikke-vaerdigt\/11276810\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TV2<\/a>.&#8221;Mads would never give up on his own\u2014that&#8217;s not his style. But he&#8217;s performing so far below his usual level that it&#8217;s not enjoyable for him to be here either,&#8221; added the general classification contender, who is still very much in contention for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/vuelta-a-espana-2026-standings-van-aert-starts-chasing-mountain-points-as-well-as-the-green-jersey\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">podium finish at the Vuelta<\/a> during the second and third weeks. Pedersen will now focus on the World Championships. \u201cAlthough it\u2019s tough, I think he can do well there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more below the photo<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/mads-pedersen-2-6a992d49e578f.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"mads-pedersen-2\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mads Pedersen<\/p>\n<p>Skjelmose\u00a0believes Pedersen will win a medal\u00a0at the World Championships<\/p>\n<p>According to Skjelmose, Pedersen is very confident he\u2019ll perform well at the World Championships. &#8220;We&#8217;ll have to see if Tadej Poga\u010dar competes, but Mads believes he can contend for a medal. And I know that&#8217;s also the reason he&#8217;s pulling out of the Vuelta now.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mads Pedersen is out of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, but that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019ve heard the last of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,14915,10873,50278,82,301174],"class_list":["post-881761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-cycling-world-championships","tag-lidl-trek","tag-mads-pedersen","tag-sports","tag-vuelta-a-espana-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}