Mads Pedersen and Tao Geoghegan Hart were announced as provisional co-leaders for Lidl-Trek at next year’s Tour de France, with the Brit brought in as a marquee signing to try and target the general classification.
The Dane has been the cornerstone of Lidl-Trek’s ambitions for most of the season and at recent editions of the Tour, taking two stage wins. But in 2024, they will bring Geoghegan Hart as a leader to challenge for the yellow jersey against the likes of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep).
Lidl-Trek haven’t cracked the top 20 on GC for the past three Tours, with Richie Porte’s third-place in 2020 their last visit to the overall podium. Geoghegan Hart, a former Giro d’Italia winner, has been signed to try and change that.
With new sponsorship from Lidl also arriving, they should be able to build quite the eight-man squad for the job. Pedersen sees the dual leadership as no issue and believes the pair can work well in tandem for the team’s ambitions of chasing stages and the overall.
“To be honest, I really enjoy having teams where we can go for the sprints and also have climbers,” said Pedersen to Cyclingnews at the Lidl-Trek training camp in Calpe.
“I believe, because it's eight riders, I need two lead-out guys and then we need a guy to pull. Then he has three climbers to help him and himself then we’re eight guys. The guy who's pulling, he's helping both of us. And on the mountain days, he can also count on the guys who are helping me you know, say it’s Kirsch, Gibbons and me.”
Pedersen worked well for Giulio Ciccone in his pursuit of the KOM jersey at this year’s Tour and is one of the very best riders at getting into breaks which could be ideal for any potential attacks to try and gain time or keep Geoghegan Hart safe from moves that go up the road.
The former World Champion isn’t selfish either, knowing well that Geoghegan Hart won’t be going shoulder to shoulder in the intense run-ins to try and position the Dane, but will instead be trying to make it inside the 3km mark and avoid any crashes.
“I'm fine with helping him and, let's say not getting it back in that race because I know as a GC guy, he's not taking turns in a leadout. I'm 100% fine with that and I would be more than proud to help him to be on the podium in Paris,” said Pedersen, referring to the Tour's traditional finish, with next year's race switching to Nice for the first time.
Pedersen and Geoghegan Hart ride under the same management at Corso Sports, co-founded by João Correia and Ken Sommer, but their connection goes back much further having raced against each other for the majority of their careers.
“We have the same agent and they really didn't want to tell me, but I got it out of him quite early,” said Pedersen excited about the prospect of a Grand Tour winner joining the project at Lidl-Trek.
“It’s huge for the team to get a Grand Tour GC winner. I can't remember who was the last one here. Nibali okay but that was, without being an ass - Tao is on the up and in a different different place in his career.
“It's super nice especially because we are friends and we know each other it makes it even cooler.”
The pair hadn’t been reminiscing about the Paris-Roubaix junior race from 2023 just yet, where Pedersen came out in first with Geoghegan Hart in third, but there’s still a lot of time until July for them to do so before taking the start in Florence.
