Lidl-Trek causes chaos on stage 12 of the Tour de France.

Mischievous smiles, pats on the back, and high-fives outside the Lidl-Trek bus in Châlon-sur-Saône. They hadn't won stage 12 of the 2026 Tour de France , but they had sown panic among the sprinters' teams, and that seemed enough.

The stage had been billed as the last great opportunity for a sprint finish, and everything was going according to plan... until Lidl-Trek materialized at the head of the pack with 35 kilometers to go. For the next 25 kilometers, the Danish team unleashed a veritable storm of attacks, dragging the race into total chaos.

The peloton eventually regrouped for the usual sprint, but the team was still satisfied with their performance. "Why not?" said sports director Kim Andersen with a smile plastered on her face. "I think it was beautiful to watch, right?"

Pedersen had already participated in previous sprints, with a best result of seventh place. Even with the green jersey practically sewn onto him, the Dane wanted to shake things up and force the sprinters' teams to sweat every meter. "If only the sprinters' teams control the sprint, we won't win," Andersen explained. "The sprints hadn't gone the way we wanted in the last few days, so we said to ourselves: let's try something different, let's go full throttle."

And so it was. Five riders took turns attacking. Quinn Simmons lit the fuse on an unclassified climb with over 35 km to go, and Mathias Vacek quickly joined a dangerous group of 15 riders that also included Filippo Ganna (Netcompany-Ineos).

After the regrouping, they tried again on the Côte de Montagny-lès-Buxy , not a particularly difficult climb with an average gradient of 3.9%, but quite treacherous on a mostly flat route. Derek Gee-West opened the scoring with a furious acceleration, followed by attacks from Simmons and Vacek. Once again, several top riders were dragged out, including French champion Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ-United), but the peloton regrouped.

Shortly after the descent, Pedersen himself launched three consecutive major attacks. Even Mattias Skjelmose , eighth in the general classification, got involved in the fray. "We really wanted to tire out the sprinters and make life difficult for them," explained sports director Steven De Jongh . "We tried to make everything as tough as possible once the climbing started with 40 km to go."

The original plan was to launch the attacks a few kilometers earlier, but with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) delayed by a puncture, the team chose to wait for him to rejoin the peloton. A gesture of fair play, confirmed by De Jongh: "It wasn't right to launch immediately while he was behind."

The idea came directly from Pedersen: "Mads had asked about the route of the last 40 km, because he saw that there were some ups and downs. Having done a complete reconnaissance of the stage, I was able to advise him to attack from that point. It was clear: if you wanted to do something, that was the right time."

The big win didn't come, partly because there appears to have been a leak: Decathlon CMA CGM director Mark Renshaw revealed that he had been warned of the impending attack earlier in the day. Pedersen nevertheless finished ninth in the final sprint and crossed the finish line of stage 12 wearing the green jersey , his goal accomplished. "We saw a finish that suited us; it's in our DNA," concluded De Jongh. "It would have been nice to lead a group, but the guys did well."