{"id":429989,"date":"2026-02-17T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/429989\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T07:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:00:18","slug":"mads-pedersen-delivers-worrying-medical-update-ahead-of-the-spring-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/429989\/","title":{"rendered":"Mads Pedersen delivers worrying medical update ahead of the Spring Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mads Pedersen<\/a> was widely seen as one of the main challengers to Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Poga\u010dar this spring, but his crash at the Volta Comunitat Valenciana has dealt the Dane a major setback. In his own podcast Lang Distance<\/a>, Pedersen shared an update a week and a half on from the incident.<\/p>\n

Pedersen went down in the opening stage in Spain, suffering fractures to his collarbone and his wrist. Because the crash was not shown live on TV, the Lidl\u2013Trek leader used the podcast episode to explain exactly what happened\u2014and why the first moments after the fall were so frightening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a narrow descent we came into a left-hand corner, where two riders on the left side of the road were riding next to each other, meaning there was no space left for the riders on the right,\u201d Pedersen explained. The former world champion ended up off the road and hit the ground hard, landing on his head and back after flipping over.<\/p>\n

Pedersen said he immediately knew his collarbone was broken, but the first medical staff on the scene feared something even worse: a back fracture. Thankfully, that was ruled out\u2014but the eventual diagnosis was still serious, with a broken left wrist and a fractured right collarbone after the high-speed impact.<\/p>\n

Mads Pedersen has been one of the standout riders in the Classics<\/a> in recent years, and Lidl\u2013Trek had built much of its spring around him once again.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo.<\/p>\n

\"pog<\/p>\n

Mads Pedersen was one of the tastemakers in the classics in recent years.<\/p>\n

Pedersen knows spring could become \u201ca very difficult story\u201d<\/p>\n

Lidl\u2013Trek had already communicated earlier that Pedersen will only return once he can be genuinely competitive. The rider himself has already been able to spin lightly on the rollers to keep the blood flowing, but he admits that getting back to full strength for this spring\u2019s biggest one-day races will be extremely difficult.<\/p>\n

Paris\u2013Nice and Milan\u2013Sanremo already look likely to be off the table. \u201cIt already looks very difficult now,\u201d Pedersen said of what remains of his spring. \u201cOne more setback and it might be impossible. But I have to try\u2014for myself and for the guys around me. I have to try to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under normal circumstances, Sanremo would be followed by a full focus on the Flemish Classics and Paris\u2013Roubaix. For Pedersen, however, it is now a pure race against the clock. Either way, fans will not see him at Opening Weekend: the rider who won Gent\u2013Wevelgem last season and finished on the podium at both the Tour of Flanders and Paris\u2013Roubaix was never planning to race there this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mads Pedersen was widely seen as one of the main challengers to Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[26024,4985,109119,114899,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-429989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-classics","9":"tag-cycling","10":"tag-lidl-trek","11":"tag-mads-pedersen","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}