Following Jasper Philipsen, Mads Pedersen also reshuffles his Tour de France build-up

The Tour de France is fast approaching. In Barcelona, we'll see Mads Pedersen at the start in the team time trial. But ahead of that, the Dane has reshuffled his plans. The Lidl-Trek rider won't be taking part in the Baloise Belgium Tour after all, and will instead only race the Danish championships, as Danish outlet Feltet reports.

Things went wrong for Pedersen on the very first race day of the year, as he crashed heavily at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in early February. Remarkably, he returned as early as 21 March at Milan-Sanremo, where he finished an impressive fourth. He then rode top-ten finishes at the E3 Saxo Classic, Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, though a win eluded him.

After Roubaix, he took a break from racing, returning over a month later. That was at the end of May, when he finished fourth overall at the Boucles de la Mayenne. The Baloise Belgium Tour was due to follow that French stage race, but Pedersen has now opted out of that.

According to Feltet, Pedersen will now only race the national championships before heading to Barcelona at the start of July for the Tour. The time trial is on 26 June, with the road race two days later. Lidl-Trek's press officer Jacob Kennison did not give a specific reason for the change, according to the Danish outlet.

Kennison did, however, stress that there is nothing serious behind the decision, and that Pedersen remains on course for the Tour de France.

Pedersen is certainly not the first name to reshuffle his schedule ahead of the Tour de France. Matteo Jorgenson, for instance, raced the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes instead of the Tour de Suisse. Jasper Philipsen, meanwhile, swapped the Tour de Suisse for the Baloise Belgium Tour, which also gets underway on Wednesday.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs | LinkedIn | Email