With Lidl-Trek missing their Tour de France GC leader after Tao Geoghegan-Hart after the British rider was hit by COVID-19 and a fractured rib, the team has recalibrated their goals for the race.
Stage hunting will be the aim, with the likes of Toms Skujins, 2023 king of the mountains Giulio Ciccone, and two-time stage winner Mads Pedersen leading the US team's charge.
The former world champion Pedersen, who has taken a stage win at each of the past two Tours, will also be handed greater leeway – and greater support – as he battles for more victories in addition to challenging reigning points classification champion Jasper Philipsen for the green jersey.
Philipsen took a comprehensive green jersey win last summer, 119 points ahead of Pedersen in Paris, but the Dane has outlined another tilt at the competition as a goal for this year's race.
"It's a good option," Pedersen said of the point classification at Lidl-Trek's pre-Tour press event at a Lidl supermarket on the outskirts of Florence on Thursday.
"I'm climbing really well. I know Jasper is still a faster sprinter than me, but I'll try to grab as many points as possible and stay in the game of the green jersey.
"Of course, the green jersey comes with trying to win as many stages as possible, so that's definitely our main goal – to win as much as possible. We will see how it plays out."
Pedersen acknowledged that improved climbing was on show at the Critérium du Dauphiné last month, where he won the opening sprint stage and put in plenty of work for team leader Ciccone in the closing mountain stages.
He's lost weight, though not too much to be a detriment to his top-end sprinting speed, he said.
"The weight is a bit lower than last year. I trained a bit more in the mountains combined with a lot of sprinting and motor pacing also. I'm used to climbing in training and it gives also a little bit of help when you start to climb in the races," Pedersen said.
"The speed is still there. We kept it on a good level, I would say, because we definitely don't want to be better at climbing and then take away the sprinting.
"But climbing better doesn't mean that you get enough points to get a green jersey. To do that, you have to win some sprints, or at least be up there every time. Last year, we had a lot of stages in the beginning, where I finished 8th, 10th, something like this. That's not enough. I have to be the top three or top five in every sprint we do to keep enough points to get in the mix of the green jersey."
Pedersen revealed that he had a COVID-19 infection in the aftermath of the Dauphiné but said it had not hindered his Tour preparation.
“It hits some people hard and some people it doesn’t, I was not affected a lot,” Pedersen said. “I had a few days off the bike, and I needed to rest anyway, and even riding with it was not a problem for me, I was lucky and hopefully I don’t get anything during the Tour.”
Pedersen's battle for green – and stage wins – may well begin on the first stage of the Tour, a hilly 206km run from Florence to Rimini. The stage features seven classified climbs, including three second-category hills, and a final climb – the 7km, 4.7% Côte de San Marino – coming 25km from the finish.
The stage may be too tough for the pure sprinters, and maybe for Pedersen, too, despite his improved climbing. He and Lidl-Trek will give their best effort, though, even if his chances of opening day success could hinge on the actions of rival teams.
"I would say that we can take the chance," Pedersen said. "Now, with no GC guys, it makes no sense not to try. I know it'll be on the limit if not over the limit, so everything has to play in our favour, but it also would be stupid just to sit up at the bottom and say 'OK, I can't make it'.
"I won't sit here and say, 'Yes, I can win that stage' because I know how tough it is. If I have to do a result, then it really depends on how all the teams want to race the last climb. So, it's open, it's in their hands if I will make it or not. Especially UAE – if they want to win already on day one, and if they go full from the bottom to the top, then I don't know – I'm not going to survive.
"We all just have to see what the situation is on the top and then we have to see if we can do damage control or not. We can talk for hours about that, but it all comes down to Saturday how it will be laid out."
Whatever the outcome of the Tour's first stage this weekend, Pedersen's focus over the next three weeks is fully on the race, rather than August's Olympic Games in Paris.
Of course, the road race there will be a major goal as he looks to add a gold medal to his 2019 rainbow jersey, but his preparation for the Olympics will largely follow last year's schedule, where he completed the Tour and then took fourth at the Glasgow World Championships two weeks later.
"Right now, I'm here for the Tour and focused on the Tour," Pedersen said. "I think it's good for me to keep racing normal and hard in the Tour. I think that's the best preparation for the Olympics.
"We saw last year with the World Championships – it's the same timing, it's two weeks after the Tour. It went quite well last year so why change this recipe of racing and training before an important goal? So, the Olympics will be my focus after we finish the time trial in Nice."
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