After last season's Tour of Flanders, riders called Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) an "alien" after his solo victory. Today at the E3 Saxo Classic, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) said he was defeated only by a "monster", as he rode to a valiant second place behind the flying Dutchman.
Pedersen was the best of the rest as the Belgian Cobbled racing season got into full swing on Friday, opening up the racing first on the Taaienberg with 80km to go before being the last to hold Van der Poel's wheel before he ultimately went away solo on the Oude Kwaremont to defend his title.
"I think it was pretty clear on the Kwaremont, he went pretty fast from the bottom and at one point, I just couldn't hold the wheel," said Pedersen.
"Then he's just incredibly good when he has the gap. He just keeps extending it. It's impossible to come back from that, so it was definitely the Kwaremont where he made the difference and showed his class."
But it was far from a disappointment for the Dane, who showed great signs ahead of his main 2025 season goals of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
"No, I'm actually really happy today, I had good legs, and this is by far the best result I have done in this race," Pedersen said post-race.
"To be beaten by a monster is OK."
His team were similarly unfazed at missing out behind only Van der Poel, aware that E3 on paper, suits Pedersen's best qualities the least, as a rider who seems to only get better as the race distance goes up and the difficulty hardens, as it will at Gent-Wevelgem and De Ronde.
"Everything went super well until the Kwaremont, and this is like man against man, and we accept that Mathieu was stronger," Lidl-Trek DS Greg Rast told Cyclingnews and Daniel Benson's Substack.
"The longer races fit Mads even better, but man against man, it's really difficult at this moment to beat Van der Poel. But this is the Classics, and [anything] can happen every day."
The former Swiss rider admitted that the team had thought about waiting for Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) after they were both left behind by Van der Poel, however, Rast concluded that it wouldn't have made a difference to the eventual winning margin of 1:05.
"Mathieu was the strongest, and we were the second strongest."
Rast also highlighted how an early crash gave them a possible chance to make the difference over the Dutchman, but noted that that was far from the way they would like to defeat the Classics superstar.
"We saw at the start when the crash happened, Mathieu was not there, and Mads was not there," said Rast. "This is maybe the only chance that he will miss something, but we don't want it to be like that, we want to beat him on the bike.
"It was a really bad crash, and we didn't want to profit off it, but in the end, we were still in a good situation because Jasper [Stuyven] was there with two guys. But we didn't pull, so it didn't change a lot."
At E3 in 2024, Lidl-Trek were proving to be one of the real dominant forces in the Classics, with Stuyven that time finishing second to Van der Poel, before Pedersen beat him at Gent-Wevelgem two days later in a two-up sprint.
Ahead of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, however, they too were dealt a nasty hand by the high-speed crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, with Pedersen crashing hard, Stuyven breaking his collarbone, and key domestique Alex Kirsch also being ruled out of the remaining Cobbled Classics.
In 2025, Pedersen and the rest are healthy and approaching top form once again. If they can keep things safe in the next few races, they are hopeful of the Dane improving further to compete with Van der Poel.
"That the shape is there," said a quietly confident Pedersen to end his interview.
"I think Mads is better than he was in the last years, and this already means a lot," agreed Rast, "and I think he will only get better from now.
"We need to get better to beat Mathieu, and Mads is unbelievably motivated, and I think he showed today a really good race and really great form."
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