VIEW FROM THE TEAM CAR
STEVEN DE JONGH DS, TREK- SEGAFREDO
Former world champion Mads Pedersen sprinted to victory in Kuurne- BrusselsKuurne. The day before at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, their highest placed rider finished 63rd. Trek- Segafredo directeur sportif Steven de Jongh explains how the team turned it around to win
We were very happy with Mads’ win because the day before in Omloop the team underperformed. Then we had a short meeting, and
I told them I had a sh*t day and we told them to just make it good on Sunday. They did a really good race, so I was super with that. They knew it wasn’t good enough, and they were sorry about that. I said, ‘Guys, we can speak long or short about this, but the thing to remember is that tomorrow is another day, and I know you are good, because we had a productive training camp.’ I sent Mads a screenshot of my result in 2008, when I won Kuurne for the second time, the night before. He came back and said that he would win. And he did, so he kept his word.
It was quite tense in the car, whether they’d bring they break back. There were a few teams that wanted to go for a sprint, so we didn’t do the work pulling behind actually, we saved Jasper Stuyven for the lead-out for Mads.
Mads has been doing better sprints for the past year, and he was going well in Bessèges, so we didn’t have to think about that or make a decision. It was already planned that Mads would go for it. The guys are in good shape, the whole team actually from the start of the year, and we’re going to try and continue this as long as possible. Form is good, so we’re looking forward to the rest of the classics. There are good competitors, mainly Van Aert and Van der Poel, but there are lots of teams that are interested in making races hard and isolating, so we now have to make our plan for the next races.
I think Mads has always been fast, he has always won a lot of races from small groups. We have a good lead out train, and I think this is getting better and better.