'A solid three' - Pedersen gives brutally honest verdict after Tour sprint battle

Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was critical of his own performance in the sprint finish on stage 11 of the Tour de France in Nevers, rating it “a solid three.”

Pedersen finished 11th on the stage won by Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility), picking up more points in his quest for the green jersey. 

Asked to rate his own performance out of ten, on what was the fastest road stage in Tour history, Pedersen gave a typically honest answer.

“For me, a solid three,” Pedersen said. “Yeah, mainly because it went fast and we got it done in a good three hours.”

The former world champion also collected eight more points at the intermediate sprint. He finished behind Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Max Kanter (XDS Astana) from the bunch, with the day’s five-man breakaway sweeping up the majority of the available points.

“Yeah, the intermediate was quite okay, but the finish was definitely not good enough, and yeah, that's a pity,” he said.

In terms of the stage finish, a combination of timing and positioning meant that Pedersen was unable to find himself in the prime position to launch his sprint.

“At one point, I have to drift back a bit to be on the sprint trains, and then I end up in the washing machine. That's just not easy to find the gaps and yeah, it's not an excuse. I'm just not good enough at that," said Pedersen.

“So yeah, of course it's super annoying to be tenth or eleventh. It would have been nice to be fifth, sixth, seventh, something like this.”

Despite the critical evaluation of his own performance, Pedersen was satisfied that his biggest rivals in the points classification battle also missed out on the maximum 70 points for the stage win, picked up by Wærenskjold. 

“It's tough to say, but I can be happy that neither [Max] Kanter, [Biniam] Girmay, nor Jasper [Philipsen] is winning the stage.”

Pedersen leads the standings in the points classification by 45 points over Biniam Girmay (NSN), while Philipsen is 62 points behind the Dane.

Stage 12 presents another opportunity for the fast men to get their teeth into.

For Pedersen, the stage will be about limiting the losses, but importantly, as Decathlon sprint coach Mark Renshaw noted, it marks one of the final pure sprint opportunities of the 2026 Tour.

Therefore, following stage 12, the scales will turn back in Pedersen’s favour as he aims to complete the Grand Tour points classification set.