Mads Pedersen still knows how to blush. The Dane won the 1st stage of the Giro
Mads Pedersen with the first pink jersey of the Giro d'Italia 2025 (photo Getty Images)
Giro d'Italia 2025 - Elevation Letter
The Lidl-Trek rider outsprinted Wout van Aert and Orluis Oular. Ciccone's push on the last climb of the day split the group and left Arensman and Gee behind. Landa fell and retired
In solidarity with the riders who run the Giro d'Italia, here we decided to tell the stages of the Giro d'Italia doing their same hard work: one letter (including spaces) per meter of altitude difference. Here is the 1st stage of the Giro, Durazzo-Tirana, 160 kilometers and 1,800 meters of altitude difference in 1,800 characters (including spaces)
Sprinters are a cycling species that most people don't like: they consider them profiteers, which is why they want to eliminate them at every climb. Why do we have to pull for hundreds of kilometers and end up behind them, while they only have to take a few hundred meters of wind in their face and win the stage?, ask the gregarious who don't have a sprinter captain. Even those who are sprinter captains, but who don't suffer much on climbs, still think the same and are angry with sprinters. And so they put their men to pull to transform a small climb into a Mortirolo.
Mads Pedersen is more than a sprinter who dislikes sprinters because they are often faster than him. He is Danish and for Goethe the Danes are spiteful. Who knows.
For this reason, in the first stage of the 2025 Giro d'Italia he eliminated them all on the two climbs towards Surrel, a small hill east of Tirana , where the finish line was located.
And to make sure that no one would come back, Giulio Ciccone, who at the end of this Giro would like to get on the podium , put in the load of a long sprint that in addition to the sprinters detached half the group, some riders who were aiming for the top positions included: like Gee, like Arensman. Landa instead fell and had to, once again, retire.
Mads Pedersen couldn't have made a mistake. With all the hard work his teammates had put in, they wouldn't have forgiven him. He didn't make a mistake. First under the finish banner ahead of Wout van Aert who hasn't collected enough second places this year (only two) and so he had to make up for it .
On the awards stage, Mads Pedersen looked at his pink jersey with satisfaction and feeling. That color suited him, it was one with his cheeks. The color of someone who still knows how to get emotional about something.
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