A "chaotic" Lecce circuit at the Giro d'Italia saw Lidl-Trek's luck run out and a dominant start to the race come to an end, with several incidents "destroying" Mads Pedersen's lead-out train for the sprint.
Pedersen had gone two for two in road stages at the Giro in Albania, but with a flat day on offer in the south of Italy for stage 4, the hectic nature of a Grand Tour sprint finale saw his planned last man, Søren Kragh Andersen, crash hard, and his team forced into "damage control".
Daan Hoole had to burn himself bringing Pedersen back to the front, after Kragh Andersen's crash held up the pink jersey, and by the time Mathias Vacek had also used up his legs, the Dane was left to fight out the final 500 metres solo, only managing fifth behind the purer sprinters.
"It was a bit of a shit situation with the crash for Søren and it caught me behind also. Luckily, I didn't come down but I was stopped," said Pedersen after the stage.
"To start to chase back with 15 kilometres to go and make it back to the front, we definitely had to use up some energy we didn't want to. Using Daan [Hoole] to come back basically destroyed our train, and from there on it was damage control.
"I had to use a bullet to make it back to the front from position 40 or 50. I just didn't have the best sprint today. I had the space, but I didn't have the legs. Sometimes the legs are there, sometimes they are not."
Given where they were at times during the two laps in and around Lecce, Lidl-Trek and Pedersen were content to just score some good points in the maglia ciclamino classification and hold onto pink, but things were not looking positive for Kragh Andersen.
"For Søren, he is very much in pain for the moment, so we don't know, we need to do some examinations right now, but it does not look good," said DS Maxime Monfort at the team bus.
"That was not easy, because Søren was our last man, something new that we wanted to try, but then we had to reorganise.
"The result is not too bad, Mads is not a real sprinter, he's much more than that, so finishing fourth on such a fast and chaotic finish, we are really satisfied."
Pedersen and Kragh Andersen weren't the only Lidl-Trek riders affected by the chaotic circuit, with their GC man Giulio Ciccone being forced into a second bike change of the day and a frantic chase with Jacopo Mosca to keep his overall hopes alive.
Like Pedersen and the sprint, the damage control saw Ciccone recover back into the main group and maintain his 51-second deficit to his teammate in the maglia rosa, actually moving up a place to 19th overall, thanks to Giovanni Aleotti (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) losing placings.
"Giulio is OK, he didn't crash at all, he just had to change his bike two times, and the second time was when we were already busy with Søren, so he had to wait like five more seconds than normal," said Monfort to Cyclingnews.
"Of course, it was only 15km to go, so to come back was not easy, but the team did a great job and it was OK. It's important he didn't go down, but we always believe on a stage like this, because it's really easy, it becomes chaotic afterwards and riders don't like it, but in the end it was OK."
Lidl-trek will be back to fight for another victory on stage 5 into what should be a quite idyllic and hard-fought finish into Matera, with Pedersen looking for a third and Mathias Vacek being a more than strong enough second option.
"We know tomorrow can be one of those days where it's 50/50 I make the front, but with the climbing legs I have in the beginning of this race, we have to try to do the best to win another stage and keep the leader's jersey," said Pedersen.
"Now we will sit down at the hotel and try to make a good plan to see if it's possible to land another top result."
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