With a tough climb coming with 26km to go on stage 5 of the Vuelta a España, Lidl-Trek's sprinter Mads Pedersen was widely expected to be challenging for the stage win in Terres de l'Ebre, but instead, Pedersen was dropped on the Alto de Paüls and Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) won his second stage of the race.
Pedersen, last year's points classification winner in the Vuelta, is currently well off the pace of race leader Tadej Pogačar's tally in the points classification of 82 points, with only 20 scored for his fourth place on stage 2. However, the Dane didn't express any regrets for burying himself to work for his teammate Mattias Skjelmose during the 173.3-kilometre stage.
