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Mads Pedersen will have to forget Saturday at Milan-San Remo that he was snubbed for Tour de France selection in favor of teammate Jonathan Milan.
At least, that’s what Lidl-Trek will be hoping Saturday when it rolls out its double-threat for their big brawl with Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel.
“It’s nice to go into San Remo with such a good team,” Pedersen said this week ahead of La Primavera. “It’s not a secret that Jonny [Milan] is the fastest of us in a sprint, so if it is coming down to that then of course we sprint for Jonny.
“But even if there is a group going over the Poggio, we’ve seen before that people are sometimes not going for a sprint in the end,” Pedersen said in a team note.
“How we handle that is something we need to discuss in our pre-race meeting.”
That meeting on the Lidl-Trek bus Saturday morning might be a little tense.
Two-time Tour de France stage-winner Pedersen was fuming this winter when he lost his TdF spot to alpha sprinter Milan.
“It’s not just my decision. We’re a big team now and there are other priorities on the team too. Johnny can win a lot of stages,” Pedersen said this winter when Lidl-Trek revealed its Tour de France selections.
“I would like to have ridden for the green jersey, but I’m not going to bed crying because I won’t be riding the Tour,” Pedersen said.
Awkward?
It could be this weekend in Italy.
A luxury problem?
Pedersen detonated Paris-Nice last week by climbing like he lost 20 pounds.
With 6th, 6th, and 4th already on his San Remo resume, monument nearly-man Mads is looking as ready to win La Primavera as he’s ever been.
“The climbing legs are definitely there. I’m happy with the shape I have right now,” Pedersen said. “I’m not at all worried that my climbing improvement has come at the expense of my sprint.”
Sadly for Pedersen, his teammate Milan monstered to two more sprint wins last week at Tirreno-Adriatico. With five victories so far in 2025, only Tim Merlier beats the behemoth Italian on victory count this year.
Pedersen and Milan are slated to be co-leading Lidl-Trek with an open playbook Saturday.
Is that a double threat or just double trouble?
Pedersen the VIP leadout: ‘If it’s a sprint, it’s for Jonny’
“Mr 2000-watt Milan” and classics brute Pedersen should be the ideal pairing of “tough guy” and “fast finisher” for the puzzle that is San Remo. They’re Lidl-Trek’s answer to Alpecin-Deceunick’s deadly duo of Van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen.
What makes Alpecin-Deceunick’s wildly successful twin assault is 100 percent buy-in by both.
Van der Poel went deep last year on the Via Roma to set up Philipsen for his monument sprint, like MVDP buries his ambitions in Alpecin’s Tour de France lead-out train.
Philipsen repays the favor in the cobbled classic engine-room.
Pedersen might have to pin his San Remo hopes on Milan going missing Saturday in a big brawl up the Cipressa and Poggio.
Otherwise, he’s relegated to becoming the most luxurious leadout man in the peloton.
“If someone sees Jonny in the group at the bottom of the Poggio then they for sure don’t want to bring him to the finish line,” Pedersen said this week. “Then hopefully me and Jasper [Stuven] will be there as well, and we will have to cover the guys who want to go before the finish.
“If it’s a sprint, it’s for Jonny,” Pedersen said in a team release.
Well, that’s what Pedersen says right now.
Who knows what happens in the red mist of sixth-hour monument madness.
Beyond team tension, Lidl-Trek has a Pogčar problem: ‘We will try to follow’
Lidl-Trek has a luxury problem for Milan-San Remo with its twin leader strategy.
Of course, that could just become a problem.
If Pedersen is still stewing after his Tour de France snub, it could derail the team’s best chance at monument victory since when Stuyven stunned San Remo in 2021 with his audacious late attack.
“There are races where one [of Pedersen and Milan] has a better chance than the other. Based on that we make choices,” team DS Steven de Jongh this week told Sporza.
“Milan and Pedersen accept those choices, but we always have to disappoint one of them. That is inevitable.”
Yet team brass at Lidl-Trek might not even be forced to disappoint one of its two toppers.
Some rainbow stripes might make that call for them.
“If Pogačar goes early it will make it a longer final. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes on Cipressa and wants to go long from there,” Pedersen said. “It means for sure we will try to follow him, and after Cipressa there would be a smaller group going into the Poggio.
“For me, I think it would be fine. The only bad part of it is that it’s Pogi, and if he goes already on the Cipressa, well, normally when he goes you never see him again.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pogacar
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Van der Poel Pedersen
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ganna Pidcock Philipsen*
⭐️⭐️ Matthews Girmay Milan Kooij
⭐️ Van Gils Mohoric Bettiol Adrià Stuyven
Este sábado, desde las 10:00h, en @Eurosport_ES y @StreamMaxES.#MilanoSanremo pic.twitter.com/URx3FxWeD3
— EDGAR SAIZ PERNIA (@edgarsaiz10) March 20, 2025
Will Pedersen bring his prime legs from Paris-Nice to the Italian Riviera?
He’ll only find out when he tries to follow Pogačar’s inevitable attack.
He might hope Milan doesn’t join along for the ride.
