With three big mountain days looming and just the final day in Paris after, the big question coming into stage 17 was: sprint or breakaway. And unusually, the green jersey – worn since stage 4 by Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen – came out swinging aggressively in favor of the latter.
Despite looking incredibly fit throughout this year’s Tour, Pedersen had not performed well in the bunch sprint finishes, finishing seventh twice as well as ninth and 13th. “Damage control” – rather than actively trying to increase his points lead – had become something of a meme between Pedersen and Tour de France interviewer Seb Piquet in their post-stage conversations.
It was no surprise then that Pedersen made huge surges forward on each of three climbs in the opening 50 km of stage 17, trying to find his way clear in a group of similarly strong riders to replicate his stage 4 breakaway win, or at least take maximum points at the day’s first intermediate sprint. Even if the efforts ultimately failed, Pedersen’s sixth place finish behind a four-rider escape on stage 9 suggested that simply making the race hard might be enough to add to his lead over Alpecin-Premier Tech's Jasper Philipsen.
Pedersen, making attacks up all the early climbs like a very normal Green Jersey wearer.
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