Mads Pedersen has had a very busy week, culminating in a gruelling day out on Sunday’s stage 9, on which dogged determination carried him from victory at the intermediate sprint, grovelling over sun-baked and lumpy terrain, to a near-catch of the breakaway, and sixth on the stage. The Lidl-Trek rider goes into the first rest day with a 45-point lead in the green jersey competition – and mixed feelings.
“It’s a mix, you know?” Pedersen said during in his flash interview, when voice-of-the-Tour Seb Piquet asked if he was happy with his points haul or grumpy to miss out on the stage victory. “In the end we did everything we could to catch the break, but it was an incredibly strong breakaway and it was just not possible. I got some good points today, so it’s a mix of a feeling. It would have been nice to contend for the win, but it was not the day and we can be happy with a decent amount of points.”
The 30-year-old Dane returned to the Tour de France this year with the aim of completing the set of Grand Tour points classifications, but he arrived knowing he’d have a hard time after a slight reconfiguration of the competition, which appeared to swing the green jersey in favour of the more pure sprinters. This meant that Pedersen’s Tour would be even harder than anticipated, allowing very little room for rest and recovery.
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