A stage win, a green jersey, a top-10 summit finish placing and a long break on the last, very hilly day of racing: no doubt about it, Mads Pedersen's hugely impressive finale to the 2025 edition of Paris-Nice has pushed the Danish star towards the top of the contenders' hierarchy for Milan-San Remo next Saturday.
After an uneven start to the race, the Lidl-Trek rider's dramatic reduced sprint victory on Friday after echelons and bad weather ripped stage 6 apart would have been more than enough to boost Pedersen's status as a favourite for the Via Roma.
But the Classics specialist and former world champion then showed more than one GC favourite a clean pair of heels on the two mountainous days that followed. He first took tenth on the Mont Auron on Saturday then went on an 83-kilometre move 24 hours later through the Alpine foothills outside Nice to seal his hold on the points competition overall.
At the same time, Lidl-Trek have other high-profile options beyond Pedersen for San Remo. Just a couple of hours prior to the Dane stepping onto the podium to claim green on the Promenade des Anglais, at Tirreno-Adriatico his teammate Jonathan Milan clinched a second stage victory in six days.
A nasty crash for 2021 Milan-San Remo winner Jasper Stuyven in the final kilometre of Tirreno-Adriatico did not stop the Belgian from finishing and will likely give Lidl yet another card to play next weekend. But equally, Milan's doubling of his 2025 Tirreno win tally on Sunday following an initial victory on stage 2 confirms that the Italian's own bad crash on stage 3 is rapidly being forgotten.
"It was important to finish Tirreno-Adriatico," Milan said in his closing press conference in comments reported by Bici.pro. "It was like the circle was completed."
"This last stage was a goal, I'd have liked to get some more results during the week, but I wasn't feeling great [after crashing on stage 3 - Ed.] and the important thing was to recover.
"Right after the fall I really thought about stopping. I was really sore and had problems, especially with my elbow and ankle. Another blow to my side only emerged later, when I realised that I couldn't push hard with my left leg."
Milan said that the fact he was able to pedal, though, confirmed that nothing was broken and he could continue on to try first to finish the stage and then for more wins. That process was marked by the initial milestone of his second 2025 Tirreno stage victory on Sunday at San Benedetto del Tronto, and will now be followed by his fourth participation in Milan-San Remo.
Asked by Gazzetta dello Sport if he sometimes felt when Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was present – as he will be on Saturday – as if he could be racing for a runner's-up spot Milan said "I don't think anybody thinks that in a race like San Remo and personally I never start a race riding for second."
"Obviously we'll have to watch Tadej, but there are lots of riders can do something there, like [Filippo] Ganna, who's just done a great Tirreno."
As for whether it was too soon to imagine he could be there in San Remo, Milan said, "I don't know about that, if I'm good, I'm good. What's certain is that we'll have a very strong team in San Remo and a very united one, so we'll see what I can do. I'm in good shape, in fact I'd say I'm going better than I thought."
Lidl-Trek's other two options
Milan would be the top favourite for Lidl-Trek should San Remo come down to a bunch sprint. But another key player for Lidl-Trek may well be Stuyven, despite his crash on Sunday.
Immediately after falling and crossing the line, the 2021 San Remo winner told media at Tirreno that the fall "was a bit stupid. A couple of guys weren't paying attention and rode into the back of me. That's very unfortunate."
"My injuries are not too bad, but it was a hard blow to my pelvis and head. Hopefully it's not a concussion."
As for Pedersen, the 29-year-old was logically very upbeat in his post-Paris-Nice press conference, saying that "Going into Milan-San Remo and the other Classics, it's looking very good, now we just have to stay healthy and keep it going."
"He can win the Primavera,” Lidl-Trek team manager Steven de Jongh told Het Laatste Nieuws. “He certainly has the qualities for it."
"However, whether it actually happens depends on a number of factors. The weather, the course of the race, which team member survives through to the final with him, the opposition he faces at the finish: these are all different elements, especially in an unpredictable race like Milan-San Remo."
De Jongh argued that while there are other sprinters who are faster than Pedersen, a San Remo run in bad weather could be exactly what the Dane – who thrives in poor conditions like the Worlds in 2019 or Paris-Nice last Friday – needs to turn the race in his favour.
"After a cold and very wet day, he is often among the strongest and fastest 'survivors'," De Jongh pointed out before warning, "It's very difficult to come up with the right strategy in advance. If you make a plan A, you usually end up with plan B or plan C."
