Lidl-Trek have become the team to beat at the cobbled Classics, with Sports Director Grégory Rast describing Mads Pedersen and the US squad’s performance at Gent-Wevelgem as “perfect” as they took on and defeated a top-form Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
When asked how he could beat Van der Poel in a sunny Ypres ahead of the start of Gent-Wevelgem, even Pedersen, one of the most confident and assured riders in the peloton, wasn’t sure.
“It’s difficult… I don’t know,” Pedersen said. “This guy is just the best cyclist, one of the best cyclists in the world. It's not easy for us to deal with him but we have to try to beat him somehow.”
But it appears eventual-winner Pedersen was leaked the script of the day as he told Cyclingnews they would follow their approach from E3 Saxo Classic where they were the dominant outfit, with numbers at the front and hopefully too much for the World Champion this time.
“Definitely, with a team like this, we have to play with numbers and the main goal with us is to have the numbers in the final and then we can play it differently to if we were only one or two riders,” Pedersen said.
However, as it was in E3, it's not as simple as that with Van der Poel presenting a unique challenge in his ability to perform on the biggest stages no matter the team pressures he has faced throughout his illustrious career. Be that Visma-Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek or Soudal-QuickStep, the flying Dutchman has almost always had an answer when it matters most.
“We try every time to beat him [Van der Poel] and try to be there with a lot of numbers like we were in E3. But even there, we have four guys and he’s still capable of beating us,” Pedersen said.
He wasn’t hopeless in the challenge, of course not - Pedersen is a champion of the sport, but he was realistic in the respect given to the World Champion who was unstoppable up the Paterberg at E3 Saxo Classic and rode 43 kilometres solo to the line, echoing his admiration at the post-race press conference even after defeating him in the sprint-a-deux.
“You know Mathieu is one of the biggest stars in cycling. Without criticising my own team, none of us is on that level,” Pedersen said.
“If we want to beat guys like him or Wout [van Aert] or even [Tadej] Pogačar, we have to be with numbers and put pressure on them. I think today we saw a way of doing that. it was nice to be there with so many guys to put pressure on him and his team.”
Jonathan Milan again proves his worth
For Pedersen and Lidl-Trek, the race played out seemingly just as they would have drawn it up in a pre-race meeting. They were active in De Moeren and among the teams most interested in splitting the race as the echelons formed.
No surprise from the Dane who assured Cyclingnews that he still believed he was in the form of his life at the start. And, as an expert in the tough windy conditions, the former world champion’s rainbow bands were evident at the front of the race as groups fanned and splits formed 150km from the line.
With the race back together and it looking like the repetitions of the Kemmelberg would be the decider, Lidl-Trek once again showed themselves to be the team to watch as Van der Poel had stated in his post-race E3 press conference.
When the World Champion lit up the first ascent of the Kemmelberg, he had only the red, blue and yellow jerseys of Lidl-Trek for company.
Pedersen was there but also Jonathan Milan who was signed not only for his sprinting power but to bolster the Classics squad. And bolster the Italian did, able to live with the Dutchman’s surge and even attack after with 82km to go, just as Rast said the team had already planned.
“We expected the race to be a little bit harder with more groups and more carnage but we wanted to be aggressive from the first Kemmel,” Rast told Cyclingnews and In De Leidestrui.
“We did that with Jonny [Milan] going there and I think this was good teamwork as Mathieu needed to chase all the way there and also Laurence Pithie had to chase. I think there, Mads could save a lot.”
Milan and Pedersen rolled attacks on the World Champion throughout the latter stages until the Italian would drop back to the peloton on the final Kemmel, eventually taking fifth in the sprint and significantly upping his best result at this race which was previously a DNF.
But Rast didn’t play down the impact the Italian’s flying form had on the finale, crediting his work for the few watts more that Pedersen had when he and Van der Poel arrived in Wevelgem for the two-up sprint and the Dane came out on top.
“He was with Mathieu [van der Poel] and he for sure wanted a short sprint and Mads [Pedersen] wanted a long sprint,” said the sports director.
“In the end, I think the action of Jonathan Milan maybe cost Mathieu [van der Poel] a couple of watts because he had to chase and Mads [Pedersen] didn’t.
“It was really a perfect team performance. Really, really nice.”
The confidence is sky-high for Lidl-Trek with the Tour of Flanders now just a week away, and Rast was not surprised to see Pedersen in such brutal form, completely unfazed by his 11th place finish at E3 where Jasper Stuyven was their man on that day in second.
“No,” Rast assured immediately when asked if this was unexpected. “We know that he [Pedersen] likes the longer races that are a bit different to the shorter ones with bam bam bam [climbs] and we are not surprised.”
However, he was again measured in his challenge to Van der Poel and the other top favourite for De Ronde, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), who wasn’t racing today.
“It says he [Pedersen] is ready but the expectation, we all know Mathieu and Wout are maybe suited to the parcours a little bit more,” Rast said. “But Mads was also already on the podium in Flanders so we are optimistic for next Sunday.
“I think he’s not scared of him [Van der Poel] anyway in any case but I think mentally he was so ready for this race. He was so focused on this one especially because this one fits him the best maybe along with Paris-Roubaix.”
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