\u201cThere were loads of people out on the laps \u2014 it gave us that extra push,\u201d he said. \u201cThanks to Bornholm and to everyone who helped get us here. To top it off with a win, that\u2019s just brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pedersen and teammate Mattias Skjelmose<\/a> forced the day\u2019s decisive selection with a well-timed counterattack inside the final 40km, bridging across to what remained of the early break. From there, it was clear Lidl-Trek had come to race, not sit back. \u201cYou saw the tactic,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cWe wanted a proper race \u2014 to split things up so we didn\u2019t end up in a bunch sprint. If we\u2019d dragged Jasper Philipsen<\/a> to the line, I\u2019d most likely have lost. That wasn\u2019t an option for us.\u201d<\/p>\n The final kilometres saw Julius Johansen try to break the group apart with a solo attack, but Skjelmose covered it smartly, allowing Pedersen to save his legs for the sprint. \u201cEveryone in the group was motivated \u2014 we all wanted to gain time on the GC guys,\u201d Pedersen explained. \u201cThere was strong cooperation until that move from Julius at the roundabout. After that, it started to splinter, but it played into our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Skjelmose\u2019s final lead-out effort proved decisive, and Pedersen launched his sprint with typical force to take both the stage win and the first leader\u2019s jersey of the race. Beyond the personal result, Pedersen was encouraged by the broader picture for Lidl-Trek. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two guys in the top 10 now, and Niklas [Larsen] was up there as well,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s looking really solid for us. Today was ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n Confident, composed, and clearly racing with a plan, Pedersen now heads into stage 2 with the leader’s jersey on his shoulders \u2014 and no intention of letting it go easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere were loads of people out on the laps \u2014 it gave us that extra push,\u201d he said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-62399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62399","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=62399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}