KEEP AN EYE ON PEDERSEN

The men’s road race at the 2019 Worlds may be the last time Mads Pedersen gets to make an innocuous late-race attack.

The Dane has form in this arena. In the 2018 Tour of Flanders, he joined an attack with Magnus Cort, Sebastian Langeveld and Dylan van Baarle with 50km to go to bridge to the remnants of the early break. Their lead never went much above 30 seconds. But they’d kept a steady, strong effort going, while the favourites’ group had split and reformed several times. Niki Terpstra attacked after the Kruisberg and rode past, but Pedersen was able to sit in for a distance and then defend his second place to the finish. If he’d stayed with the favourites, he’d likely have been dropped, but by putting himself ahead, he gave himself an excellent chance, and if Terpstra had waited any longer, could even have won.

In Harrogate, a similar tactic worked. He got away before the really hot favourites attacked, so that when they eventually did, they’d tired themselves to bridge up to him every bit as much as he had by attacking early. Maybe that made the small percentage of difference that enabled him to outsprint the usually much faster Matteo Trentin to win.

Will Pedersen get similar opportunities next year? Perhaps not, with the rainbow jersey making him a lot more visible. But remember he’s only 23. It might take two or three seasons, but he eventually may not need to make relatively early attacks to win races.