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One day after Edward Theuns won the Primus Classic, Mads Pedersen put on a display of his strength and soloed to victory for Trek-Segafredo, giving the team its second straight win.
Using the same tactics that worked brilliantly in the last races for Trek-Segafredo, Pedersen was given the green light to be aggressive and play for victory, leaving John Degenkolb in reserve for the sprint.
"It's nice to be back on the podium and nice for the team to take two victories in a row," said Pedersen. "Today we tried to do something else than a sprint, and we had John (Degenkolb) here, so he was still focused on the sprint. I was allowed to try something different, and the plan was actually for me to try later in the final, but we had a hard climb and crosswind just before the local lap, and I decided to go already there when the peloton slowed down again. I made it across to the breakaway, and from then I worked well with them. Just after the finish line with two laps to go, I went hard through some corners – it was raining since the last 60kms and very slippery in the city. Then I just went all out and hoped for the best.
"It was very hard from kilometer six until two to go as there was a lot of headwind at that point. I managed to stay in front, and that was super nice and super nice to be there with the whole team again after the awesome job of the team yesterday with Eddie's win, and now to do it again today. It has been a really good weekend, and we can't be more happy than this! Next up is Worlds."
Pedersen had enough time to savor his victory, with over 30 seconds in-hand ahead of a reduced chasing bunch. Making the victory even sweeter, John Degenkolb sprinted to second ahead of Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) to place two Trek-Segafredo teammates on the podium, and Alex Kirsch made it three in the top 10 with an eighth place.
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