Mads Pedersen will not ride the Tour de France in 2025 as he heads to the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España instead. Jonathan Milan is now set to lead Lidl-Trek's sprint ambitions in July.
There was talk that the pair could head to the Tour together, with Pedersen to lead out Milan after they paired up perfectly on the Lidl-Deutschland Tour in 2024, however, Lidl-Trek have opted to split their powers between the three Grand Tours in search of a sweep of the points jerseys.
Former world champion Pedersen will ride a "copy-paste" schedule up until the race he wants to win most, Paris-Roubaix, before heading back to the Giro for the fourth time in his career.
"Until Roubaix, it's a copy-paste of the other years, starting in France, training camp, Paris-Nice and the Classics from there on. After that, I will have a smaller break because I'm going to the Giro this year," said Pedersen in a press conference on Friday.
"After the Giro, I will, of course, try to keep the shape going until the Sprint Challenge Copenhagen, the new WorldTour race, and then national championships a week after.
"There will be no Tour de France for me this year. I will have a summer at home, and then I will do the Tour of Denmark, and I will do a Vuelta afterwards."
Pedersen confirmed that Milan would make his debut and be the chosen sprinter for the Tour, as he's better suited to the route with seven possible sprint opportunities en route from Lille to Paris.
After Milan quadrupled his win tally at the Giro last year from one stage victory to four and defended his ciclamino points jersey at the same time, Lidl-Trek have a better chance at winning multiple stages of the Tour with the Italian, believes Pedersen. Milan, at age 24, has quickly established himself as one of the fastest pure sprinters in the world alongside Jasper Philipsen and Tim Merlier.
"It's not a single decision by me. We are a big team now, and we have a lot of big riders, and the team have big goals in all the Grand Tours," said Pedersen.
"The course of the Tour fits Johnny [Milan] really well. For me, he's one of the best sprinters in the world, if not the best sprinter and of course, he should go to the Tour with that amount of Sprint stages.
"It was not an easy decision because, of course, I would like to go to the Tour and fight for green. But I also see the point that we can win, as a team, a lot of stages in the Tour with Johnny, and I think that's the right decision it's a lot easier to win, dream scenario, three, four stages with him than it is with me."
Pedersen started his first Grand Tour at the Giro in 2017. He'll chase stages and try to defend the points jersey Milan won in 2024 before going to only his second Vuelta later in the summer. At his first Spanish Grand Tour, he won three stages and the green jersey.
"I always like the Giro. My first and second Grand Tour was there. It's hard racing, maybe a bit too shit weather sometimes. But that's not the fault of the race. It's more, you know, the timing of the year," said Pedersen.
"But I do really like the Giro and we come with big ambitions to win as many stages as possible, and also the points jersey. Jonny did superb in 2024 and I will, of course, try to do the same as him in 2025."
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