Mads Pedersen laid down one of the best Classics performances of his career at the Tour of Flanders last weekend, going on the attack from long before eventually standing on the podium beside Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel.
This Sunday he enters Paris-Roubaix among the major contenders for glory in the Roubaix velodrome on Sunday afternoon.
“For Flanders, I’m 100% happy. I did – from my point of view – no mistakes and I think it ended up with a nice result, so I wouldn’t change anything last Sunday,” Pedersen said in a virtual press conference ahead of the race.
“It’s a completely different race,” Pedersen said of Paris-Roubaix. “We knew from other races, especially E3 that we saw the big three, they were just on another level when we were going uphill, and that’s pure facts.
“At Roubaix, we don’t have so many climbs, a little bit but not like Flanders,” he added.
Former world champion Pedersen has been one of many Classics contenders left in the wake of Mathieu van der Poel, Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert‘s Jumbo-Visma this spring, a gap in power that has influenced tactics across teams throughout the Classics season.
“You see all the races how the teams were trying to anticipate and challenge these guys. But they are always so strong that even when we try to challenge them they’re still better,” he said.
“At Flanders, you saw the difference in how teams were racing. A lot of guys wanted to anticipate early. But I think if we anticipate early and be in front of it, you never know what happens. If Pogačar got a puncture or if I had 20 more seconds on the Kwaremont I could have been with Mathieu on the top.
“We try to grab the races in a different way and try to beat them because we know we can’t beat them on pure power. But Roubaix is a different race, where watts per kilo doesn’t make such a big difference as it does in Flanders.”
While Van Aert has expressed some doubt about his form and condition ahead of Paris-Roubaix, Pedersen presented an unusually forceful defence of his rival.
“The media is putting a question mark on Wout – I don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “He’s one of the best cyclists in the world and he’s still performing super good. It’s not easy to be a superstar like him and then everyone is looking at him and then still to race like he’s doing.
“So I think this question mark especially the media is putting on him is completely bullshit and you should give him some more credit.”
He displayed similar admiration for the other…
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