Mads Pedersen has certainly had a time of it at the Giro d'Italia so far.
Securing three stage wins in the first five days, holding the pink jersey throughout (a day-long loan to Primož Roglič aside), having to wear the pink TT suit on road stages because the road suit wasn't ready, shaving most of Jacopo Mosca's hair off. Lidl-Trek's star rider must be exhausted.
It indeed looked that way on the rainy stage 6 to Naples. Brought down in the crash that caused the race to be temporarily neutralised, Pedersen's time in pink seemed to be over when he came across the line around six minutes after Alpecin-Deceuninck's Kaden Groves had won the sprint finish.
This was a frightful shame, as news filtered through that the pink jersey after stage 6 would be invited (read: borderline forced, but we'll get to that in a bit) to step onto a seaworthy vessel in the Bay of Naples to press some flesh and snap some photos with various Very Important People. Thankfully, the GC timings of the day were thrown out due to the stage neutralisation, and so Pedersen would be required on the boat after all! (Roglič, who'd been poised to take over the race lead had GC times been kept, must have been relieved).
Now, if you know Mads Pedersen, you'll be aware he's a bit of a joker. The aforementioned head shaving, the time he interrupted an interview his sports director Grégory Rast was giving outside the bus by beeping its horn incessantly. We're picking up what he's putting down, and frankly were very excited to see what sort of mischief he could get up to on a boat.
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