🎥 Pedersen and Carapaz bond over common enemy Lenny Martinez on stage 19 of the Tour de France stage

Richard Carapaz and Mads Pedersen were undoubtedly two happy men after Stage 19, as was clearly evident in an incredibly heartwarming moment behind the podium. Carapaz claimed the polka-dot jersey, while Pedersen added another 25 points toward the green jersey thanks to another day on the attack. Their teams, EF Education-EasyPost and Lidl-Trek, played a key role in that.

It was no secret that Lidl-Trek once again had its sights set on getting Pedersen into the leading group during Stage 19. The Dane had also been part of a breakaway in a mountain stage the day before, winning the intermediate sprint. With that victory, he extended his lead in the points classification over Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) from 7 to 32.

That wasn’t enough, because on the final day of the Tour, Pedersen could theoretically still lose a lot of points to Philipsen in a potential sprint finish in Paris. And so he slogged his way up three more climbs, only to then pick up 25 points at the intermediate sprint. Pedersen then dropped back and, as if nothing had happened, put in a solid turn at the front of the peloton of favorites.

"You guys know me—I love this stuff. It was a really good day," Pedersen beamed afterward on Eurosport. "Carapaz needs the points a little more than I do; he's only one mountain point ahead of Tadej Pogacar. EF Education-EasyPost will have a mission in Stage 20, and maybe we can join forces again then.”

"The main goal today was to score points, but it was a disappointment that Lenny Martinez (who moved up from 7th to 5th in the general classification after a day in the breakaway, ed.) was in the group. In the end, we stopped leading the breakaway when we had a 2.5-minute lead, and after the intermediate sprint, Derek (Gee-West, ed.), Mathias Vacek, and I dropped back and took the lead in the peloton.”

"Mattias Skjelmose is now 10 seconds behind Martinez, so hopefully he can make up some ground in Stage 20. I would have liked to have led the peloton a little longer, but then Decathlon CMA CGM decided it was over."

The post-stage chat between Carapaz and Pedersen after the nineteenth stage consisted of mutual compliments and remarks from the Dane, who seems to be positioning himself for another day on the attack in the final mountain stage. This way, EF Education-EasyPost can go for the mountains jersey, and Pedersen can secure the green jersey with Lidl-Trek.

Carapaz and Pedersen already had a common enemy in Lenny Martinez on Friday. While for Pedersen this was mainly because the Frenchman was threatening his Lidl-Trek team leaders Skjelmose and the faltering Juan Ayuso, Carapaz was unhappy with Martinez’s racing style in the breakaway. “He cut me off and was rude. He also refused to cooperate, and I don’t respect that,” the climber told Eurosport.