Mads Pedersen dominates to win stage 5 and GC at the Tour of Denmark
Stage 5 of the Tour of Denmark was the final stage of the stage and in store was a 157.4 kilometre stage from Hobro to Silkeborg in central Denmark, covering just the 1464 metres of elevation gain. Mads Pedersen was in the leader's jersey of the race, and went into the stage with a comfortable 58 second advantage.
Stage 5 got off to a fast start, with a group of 9 riders shooting off up the road, with the most notable being the retiring Jakob Fuglsang (Israel Premier Tech), whilst the remaining riders consisted of Mads Würtz Schmidt (Denmark), Mads Andersen (AIRTOX - Carl Ras), Filippo Ridolfo (Team Novo Nordisk), Marius Innhaug Dahl (Decathlon AG2R), Daniel Weis Nielsen (Decathlon AG2R), Conrad Haugsted (Team ColoQuick), Anders Vos Sørensen (Team ColoQuick), Mads Landbo (Team Give Steel - 2M Cycling Elite).
Back behind in the peloton, a trio of teams were controlling, those being Visma | Lease a Bike, Picnic PostNL, and Alpecin-Deceuninck, as the breakaway's advantage sat at the +01:45 mark.
With 110km to go, Mads Würtz Schmidt suffered a mechanical problem and was caught shortly afterwards by the peloton, leaving 8 riders up the road with 100 kilometres to go.
As the final stage progressed, Marius Innhaug Dahl wrapped up the king of the mountain's classification, an impressive achievement for the 19-year-old Norwegian, who is still in the Decathlon AG2R development squad.
65km from the line, the breakaway's advantage was slashed with the gap reduced by just under a minute, down to the mark of 54 seconds between the group of 9 and the roaring peloton, still controlled by the earlier-mentioned teams.
The stage progressed with the same situation until 37 kilometres from the finish line, Andresen decided to launch off on a solo mission from the breakaway as behind him, the group of 7 chasers followed, as Andresen built a slim advantage of just 14 seconds, and 37 seconds ahead of the peloton as the riders approached the localised circuit for 3 passages of the finish line before it.
23km out, the group of chasers behind Andresen were swallowed up the the peloton leaving Andresen solo with a 16 second advantage over the peloton with 20km to go, he was shortly caught with 17km to go as Lidl-Trek took control of the peloton, pacing the bunch and asserting the dominance putting 4 of their riders to the front.
It became a Lidl-Trek party as a leading group of 7 went clear, including Søren Kragh Andersen, Jakob Söderqvist, Mads Pedersen, Lukáš Kubiš (Unibet Tietema Rockets), Axel Zingle (Visma | Lease a Bike), Matyáš Kopecký (Novo Nordisk) and Niklas Larsen. Kubiš and Laresen were soon dropped after as Lidl-Trek rode on in the front group.
The group of 5 leaders were to compete it out for the stage win, where it was taken by Mads Pedersen after he outkicked Zingle to the line to end a week of pure domination at the Tour of Denmark from himself and his Lildl-Trek team as Pedersen also took the GC.
