Pedersen wins in Saint-Étienne - German Tour de France record for Geschke

By Tom Bachmann and Stefan Tabeling, dpa

Simon Geschke (Cofidis) rolled relaxed almost a quarter of an hour behind the day's winner Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) crossed the finish line and almost routinely made his way to the Tour de France podium.

At the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium of France's record football champions AS Saint-Étienne, the Berliner successfully defended his distinctive mountain jersey for the fourth time and thus wrote another small piece of German history. Tour de France-history. No German professional cyclist has ever worn the famous white piece of cloth with the red dots for five days.

>> The result of the stage: This is the status in the rankings

Geschke wants to take the mountain jersey into the rest day

"I didn't know about the German record. That's nice, but I rather hope that I can take the jersey with me into the rest day. And then come the really tough stages," said Geschke. The supposedly easy stage after the Alps was also tough due to temperatures of over 35 degrees. "It was pretty tough due to the heat," said Geschke. "I'm recovering day by day and trying to gather as much strength as possible for the Pyrenees." After the rest day on Monday, the peloton has to head back into the mountains on Tuesday.

Geschke's room-mate Max Walscheid was optimistic about seeing the experienced pro in the mountain jersey for a few more days. "I'm totally thrilled. It's a great thing for us. Simon gets good support and ultimately has good legs," said the medical student from Heidelberg. "He's right to wear the jersey. Every day is worth its weight in gold. And tomorrow shouldn't be a problem at all, the day after that is also doable."

Mountain king Geschke refrained from attacks and further points and stayed in the peloton after the strenuous days in the high mountains and later let go. With 43 points, the Berlin is still at the top of the mountain classification, with South African Louis Meintjes four points behind in second place.

So far, Marcel Wüst has been the professional cyclist who has worn the mountain jersey most often in the Tour from a German perspective. The sprinter from Cologne wore the jersey for four stages of the 2000 Tour and Geschke has a good chance of successfully defending his lead in the classification until the second rest day on Monday. The Stages at the weekend lead through the Massif Central and should suit the Cofidis pro in terms of profile. The only question is the strength of the experienced rider.

Pedersen crowns breakaway attempt

Pedersen was tireless on the 192.6 kilometre route to Saint-Étienne. The Danish former world champion prevailed in the sprint of a breakaway group ahead of the Brit Fred Wright and the Canadian Hugo Houle. "It's incredible to finally take the stage win. The form is good and it took many attempts. For a rider like me, there are few opportunities in this Tour, so I had to take them," said Pedersen. "For a long time I thought it was a mistake to go into the group. The gap wasn't big, but the course was hard enough." It was the third Danish stage win in this Tour, which started in Copenhagen.

In the overall standings, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) had no problems defending his yellow jersey, as expected. The Dane is 2:22 minutes ahead of defending champion Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and 2:26 ahead of the Welsh former Tour winner Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers).

After the start in Bourg d'Oisans at the foot of the climb to Alpe d'Huez, numerous riders attempted a breakaway, including the German champion Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe). In the end, there was a seven-man lead group without any German riders, which included time trial world champion Filippo Ganna. However, there was no unity among the sprinter teams in the chase, so that the breakaway riders made it to the finish.

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