Even an hour after crossing the line and feeling the euphoria of victory on a Grand Tour stage, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was still fired up, saying it "didn't matter who it was" up the road on stage 15 of the Vuelta a España, today was going to be his.
For a sport where 150 riders line up at the start and 50 of them get a chance to fight for the win out of a breakaway, as was the case on Sunday's stage to Monforte de Lemos, on occasion, there are days when a superstar rider is simply too strong for the rest, and former World Champion Pedersen is certainly one of them.
Winless so far at the Vuelta, when he was probably expected to have at least two victories now after his quadruple success at this year's Giro d'Italia, Pedersen replied "No", and "I won't be happy" bluntly to the question of whether leaving this Vuelta with this green jersey and with no stage win will be enough.
Up to this point, he'd been shocked by David Gaudu on stage 3 and managed three stage top 10s, but no win to add to the three he already had from previous Vueltas.
Four hours of racing later and Pedersen had rectified that and was more than delighted, with his team putting on a masterclass to get five riders in the early move and chase down a splinter duo who got almost three minutes up the road, before the Dane then did the business alone out of a final group of nine riders.
"It's nice to finally win. I was close in the first week, and it's not a secret that I'm here to win stages, so maybe it took a bit too long, but we knew the shape was there and showed it all week," said Pedersen in his winner's press conference.
"We also knew going into this Vuelta that we didn't have too many opportunities since it's a lot of climbing and uphill finishes. Today was one of the stages we put a big mark on before the race started, so we definitely needed to win today, and it's nice finally to have it in the pocket."
The Dane gave huge credit to his teammates that joined him up front: Carlos Verona, Julien Bernard, Giulio Ciccone and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier, after they got him within touching distance of Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Louis Vervaerke (Soudal-QuickStep), who'd attacked away with 118km to go.
Pedersen then surged himself and followed several moves inside the final 30km to form a lead chase group, which went on to fight out the victory after catching Vine and Vervaeke inside 8km to go.
"It can be a UAE rider, it didn't matter who it was, we were here to win," said Pedersen of the duo getting up the road. "It was not an ideal situation when Vine and Vervaerke went; they were pretty strong, and it was really tough for teammates.
"I had to use them up quite early and spend everything they had, but this also shows that you can't win without a team. But it definitely wasn't a nice moment when they had more than 2:30. In the end, the guys had a lot of power in their legs and made it happen.
"It makes the victory even sweeter, the way the team worked the whole day. The boys worked so hard to make it possible, so in the end, it's even nicer when everyone was looking at us, everyone knew our plan, and still we succeeded with the victory."
Having made it into the group which would play out the finale, Pedersen's job was far from simple, with his status as one of the top riders in the world, second-highest in the UCI rankings behind only Tadej Pogačar, and the fastest in the break making him the target of several attacks.
But he had the answer for every single one of them, marking out a move from Vine himself, increasing the pace on the front and wasting potential energy to ensure nothing too strong came over the top, and then timing his sprint for the line perfectly.
"There was no choice, I had to follow everything," he said.
"I kept the speed a bit high so no one really wanted to go, and then when [Marco] Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech) went with 800m to go, that was perfect, so he would kind of do a bit of a lead-out. I was closing him slowly, then after the corner, it was 230m to go and time to open the sprint."
Orluis Aular (Movistar) gave a good fight in the sprint, but after such a hard day in the legs, only someone with the Classics prowess of Pedersen could keep up that high a sprint effort, something he's become known for and is likely the best in the world at.
With a stage victory finally in his pocket, Pedersen will look at two more, on stage 19 and the final day in Madrid, where, if he arrives safely, he should confirm Lidl-Trek's sweep of all Grand Tour points jerseys, adding to his at the Giro and Jonathan Milan's green jersey triumph. His lead, with just six stages to ride, is already 98 points ahead of compatriot and race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).
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