Mads Pedersen played off the hard work of his Lidl-Trek team and claimed the opening stage of the 2025 Giro d'Italia in Albania to move into the first maglia rosa of the race.
The Dane held off a late charge from Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) in second and with Orluis Aular (Movistar) a surprise presence in third.
The sprint came from a peloton shattered by the furious pace of Lidl-Trek on two ascents of the Surrel climb in the last 35km, distancing GC hopefuls like Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers).
Lidl-Trek lead-out man Mathias Vacek brought Pedersen to the front ahead of the final turn, and it was almost a foregone conclusion that the Dane would win.
"To win the stage and go into the pink jersey is absolutely amazing, especially after teamwork like this."
Pedersen said the team's efforts on the climb to reduce the leading group went exactly as planned, but he still had to worry about Van Aert.
"You always have to be afraid of Wout, he's a really good bike rider. It's not a given to win when he's in the group, and you have to handle that with respect and a bit of fear as well. But today I had the legs to finish it off for the team."
Pedersen leads the overall classification by four seconds over Van Aert, with Aular third another two seconds back.
"It's the first leader's jersey I have in a Grand Tour, so that's something nice."
Van Aert said before the start of the Giro that a viral infection had impacted his training since the Amstel Gold Race, but he suffered through to have a shot at the pink jersey in Saturday's time trial.
"There are only a few opportunities to take the pink jersey. So that's why I really want to try - on the last climb, I suffered so much to just hang on. So it's a pity to finish in second place, but it's better than I expected."
How it unfolded
The weather was fine for the Grande Partenza of the 2025 Giro d'Italia in Durrës, Albania, as the 184 riders rolled out for a 160-kilometre stage to Tirana. The attacks came immediately from VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, and after a few tries, a five-man escape succeeded in getting away.
In the move were Alessandro Verre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Alessandro Tonelli (Polti-VisitMalta), Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty) and Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè).
Visma-Lease a Bike weren't giving the quintet much room to build up hopes of contesting the stage win, so the breakaway instead fought for the mountains classification with one category 2 and two category 3 ascents in the second half of the stage.
A small crash involving Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and Max Poole (Picnic-PostNL) only briefly disrupted the chase with 90km to go.
Tonelli led the breakaway across the first intermediate sprint in Papër and again in Elbasan before the breakaway made their way up the first climb, the 12.9 kilometre Gracen.
The breakaway had only 1:20 in hand as they began the ascent. When Tonelli attacked ahead of the final 2km of the climb, the pace was too much for Van der Hoorn, and he wisely dropped back to the peloton. The remaining four riders engaged in a battle so fierce it looked as if they were sprinting for the stage win in the run-up to the summit.
In the final metres, Tarozzi attacked but was quickly marked and passed by Moniquet, who timed his surge perfectly and held off Verre at the summit to put in his bid for the blue climber's jersey.
Their advantage on the peloton was 1:26 at the top and fell rapidly once the peloton followed and started on the descent. Verre attacked on the twistiest part of the descent, leaving behind his three companions as the peloton closed in with just 13 seconds separating the two groups.
Tonelli tried to stay with Verre but opted to play it safe and let the Arkéa rider go. The peloton also proceeded with caution, allowing Verre to stretch his lead to almost one minute. Once safely off the descent, the four breakaway riders came back together, and their gap fell to 37 seconds.
Tarozzi won the time bonus sprint in Sauk with 48km to go as the breakaway held a 15-second lead. That was wiped out soon after, and the peloton was all together with 41km to go.
Lidl-Trek kept a steady pace on the first ascent of the Surrel climb, but at the top, Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) sprinted past to take the maximum points.
The pace on the climb kicked some of the stage contenders out the back - Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) lost touch, raising Lidl-Trek's hopes of putting Pedersen in the first maglia rosa.
Lidl-Trek led the peloton on the second ascent of the Surrel again, shredding the bunch and kicking GC hopefuls Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) and Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) out the back. So vicious was their pace that even Wout van Aert had to give up the wheels and filter back in the bunch.
Giulio Ciccone led the peloton over the summit - a fact that gave Moniquet the climber's jersey - with the Gee group almost half a minute behind. A small peloton headed down toward the finish, still under the power of Lidl-Trek.
A crash on the descent just outside 5km to go took out Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) and Geoffrey Bouchard (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and sparked another crash from the chasing group as they came upon the carnage.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe led into the final 2km, keeping Primož Roglič in a prime position in an even more reduced peloton, but Lidl-Trek led into the final bend with Pedersen in second wheel.
Although Van Aert had clawed his way back to the Dane and latched onto his wheel, the Belgian could not make it past Pedersen and was denied the win.
Results
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