Giro d'Italia 2025: Mads Pedersen powers to fourth win in stage 13

Tagliacozza [Italy], May 24 : Majestic Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) surged to a fourth win in the Giro d'Italia after outkicking Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and pink jersey Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG) on the uphill finish at Vicenza. It was a fifth win of the race for the Danish powerhouse's Lidl-Trek team. Bonus seconds saw Del Toro extend his general classification lead to 38 seconds over team-mate Juan Ayuso.

Pedersen's fourth win on this Giro was perhaps his best, the in-form 29-year-old having to battle a double-digit gradient in the final kilometre before launching early to snuff out the threat from his resurgent rival Van Aert. An impressive third place from Del Toro, meanwhile, saw the Mexican finish three seconds clear of his general classification (GC) rivals and, once bonus seconds were factored in, extend his lead over Spanish team-mate Juan Ayuso to 38 seconds.

French duo Remy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ) and Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) completed the top five before Slovenia's Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) led home the group of GC favourites on the leg-sapping finale to Stage 13, as per the Giro d'Italia press release.

Lidl-Trek played a blinder in the finale after Czech youngster Mathias Vacek - so instrumental in Pedersen's wins this May - followed an attack by Romain Bardet (Picnic PostNL) after the climb to the Red Bull KM sprint inside the final 10km.

"We were trying to win the stage with him [Vacek] because he deserves it so much," Pedersen said after the 54th win of his career.

"If there had been a little bit more hesitation with the peloton, then he and Bardet would have had 25 seconds and I'm pretty sure they would have made it to the line.

"This was ideal because he grabbed a chance of winning the stage and we could sit behind and let the other teams keep a really high speed. So, it was an ideal situation for us."

When the Alpecin-Deceuninck team of Kaden Groves took up the chase with Van Aert's Visma, the duo's advantage came tumbling down. With Bardet and Vacek caught in the final kilometre ahead of the steep 12% ramp of Monte Berico, Alpecin's Edward Planckaert took it up.

But Planckaert had no team-mate on his wheel and instead it was Pedesen who made his decisive move early - just as the pink jersey of Del Toro was ready to pounce.

"I had to open up on the right-hand side close to the barrier and I went a bit earlier than I wanted to," Pedersen said. "But on such a hard uphill final like this, sometimes it's okay to go a little early because everyone has burning legs in the last few hundred metres."

Asked whether he could now match Tadej Pogacar's six wins from last year's Giro, Pedersen kept his feet on the ground and preferred to stay rooted in the present. "Right now, I'm just happy with this one and adding another 50 points to my maglia cilamino lead," he said. "It's still a long way to Rome and I'm just overwhelmed about winning again - it's been a really great Grand Tour for me."

Victory amid a no-show from maglia cilamino rival Olav Kooij (Visma) saw Pedersen move over 100 points clear in the classification, with the indefatigable Del Toro now his nearest challenger.

Four categorised climbs added spice to an otherwise pan-flat 180km stage from Rovigo, with a strong breakaway of nine riders eventually going clear after an active start.

Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Sven Erik Bystrom and Lorenzo Germani (Groupama-FDJ), Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar), Luca Mozzato (Arkea-B&B Hotels), Fran Miholjevic (Bahrain Victorious), Chris Hamilton (Picnic PostNL), Mattias Bais (Polti VisitMalta) and Filippo Magli (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane) combined well to establish a maximum lead of 2'30" over the pack as they passed the Soave vineyards of the Veneto region of northern Italy.

Italy's Bais led the break over the Passo Roverello and then took the spoils in the first intermediate sprint, before Belgium's De Bondt turned the tables and found joy in the second sprint at San Bonifacio.

While the odds always looked stacked against the escapees, De Bondt knew a thing or two about chasing lost causes: in 2022, he won Stage 18 in Treviso from the breakaway on a day everyone thought the sprinters would steal the limelight.

Scaroni and Germani stretched their lead to almost a minute as the Bahrain Victorious team of Italy's Antonio Tiberi took up the chase behind. The Italian duo just held on when the race crossed the finish line in Vicenza for the first time ahead of a final loop, but Germani soon popped.

The punchy rise to the Red Bull KM sprint with nine kilometres remaining saw Del Toro test his legs before easing up to allow UAE team-mate Ayuso through to take the four bonus seconds for second place behind lone leader Scaroni, the Mexican diplomatically settling for the remaining two seconds for third.

With Scaroni soon pegged back, Bardet rolled the dice and took Vacek with him. The pair never had much more than 16 seconds, however, and they were swept up at the foot of the second and final slog up Monte Berico, where Pedersen proved his weight in gold.

Race leader and daily animator Del Toro - who once again finished behind Van Aert, the man who pipped him on Sunday's stage to Siena - showed just why he cannot be underestimated in this slow-burning fight for pink.

Colombia's Egan Bernal (Ineos) and Canada's Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) also finished strongly and rose back into the top 10 at the expense of Britain's Adam Yates (UAE) and Arensman (Ineos), who were both caught out in splits on the brutal rise to the line.

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