The Danish rider’s rehabilitation has progressed more quickly than anticipated, with the team taking a carefully managed approach to his return to the bike.
“Mads’ recovery has progressed as well as we could have hoped — if not better. “With fractures, the central challenge is always timing: mobilise too early, and you risk the repair, but immobilise the joint for four weeks, and you then face a further two to three weeks rebuilding range of motion."
We took a carefully managed approach, introducing gentle wrist loading early — beginning on the rollers in Mallorca, then progressing to a gravel bike with adapted handlebars — always within strict parameters to ensure there was no risk to the fracture site," says Dr Jens Hinder, Head of Rider Welfare on the team website.
Pedersen himself admitted that a start at La Classicissima had not been the original plan, but that strong training sessions over recent days convinced both rider and team that the decision was right.
“Honestly, the plan was not to race Sanremo,” says Pedersen, “but we have done some really good training, and we wanted to see specific numbers to be able to have a chance to make a good result in this race as well. After a few hard trainings this week, we believe that it is a good decision to race again, pin the numbers on, and get comfortable in a race again. Of course, the doctors and my coach also had a say in how and when I could make it back. Dr. Jens did a lot of examinations with my hand and me, and he is 100 percent confident that I can race again already — so it’s pretty nice to be back already", says Mads Pedersen.
Milano-Sanremo takes place on Saturday.