Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) has been forced to abandon his first race of the season after suffering from gastrointestinal problems on the opening stage of the Etoile de Bessèges.
The Dane started the five-day French stage race as the defending champion and was looking to get off to a flying start in 2025 ahead of the Classics season.
His issue started on the opening stage in Bellegarde, which ran on the same parcours he won on in 2022, when gastrointestinal trouble saw him finish 129th and 1:43 down on stage winner Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep).
Pedersen hoped to recover on the second day and compete in the predicted sprint finish, however, he was again absent in the final and finished 141st, 6:03 down on the leaders. With that in mind, the former world champion hasn't taken the start of stage 3 and is heading home to recover for his next race.
"Following his gastrointestinal trouble on Stage 1, Mads will not take to the start of today’s Stage 3 of Etoile de Bességes," read a social media post from Lidl-Trek on Friday morning. "He will instead travel home to recover and prepare for next week’s Tour de La Provence."
After his departure, Lidl-Trek are left without a leader but still have Alex Kirsch and Ryan Gibbons to contest the sprints and Julien Bernard as an option for the hills.
The Tour de la Provence starts on February 14 so Pedersen will have a week to recover. He will again start as the defending champion after his success in the south of France last season.
From there, his next race will be at Paris-Nice before the one-day Classics come thick and fast, starting at Milan-San Remo on March 22, where he was fourth last year.
The Dane will again be looking for his first-ever Monument triumph in 2025, with Paris-Roubaix well-documented as his dream race to win. He won the Hell of the North at junior level back in 2013 and finished fourth and third in the last two respective editions.
