Mads Pedersen has revealed that he intends to retire from professional cycling after the 2029 UCI Road World Championships in Denmark.
The 30-year-old announced his plans while appearing on TV 2’s AftenTour programme during the Tour de France, outlining a clear end point to a career that has already delivered a world title and stage victories in all three Grand Tours.
“The plan is that this is where I would like to stop racing my bike. There is no reason to sit here and keep it secret,” Pedersen said, according to TV 2 Sport’s report on his retirement plans.
Pedersen is not preparing to wind down immediately. He expects to remain at the highest level for another three seasons and wants to leave the sport while he is still capable of winning major races.
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A special farewell on home soil
Denmark was awarded the 2029 Road World Championships by cycling’s governing body, with Copenhagen and Aarhus among the host cities.
For Pedersen, who became Denmark’s first elite men’s road world champion in Yorkshire in 2019, the opportunity to finish his career at a home World Championships carries considerable emotional weight.
“It would be bloody brilliant to stop on Danish soil with the World Championships in Copenhagen,” he said.
“It would be completely crazy for me, and I hope it will be a huge celebration.”
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The 2029 event will be the first Road World Championships held in Denmark since Copenhagen hosted the competition in 2011. The UCI confirmed Denmark as the host during its annual congress in September 2024.
Pedersen’s proposed retirement date would allow him to finish in front of a home crowd, rather than gradually slipping from the position of team leader into a supporting role.
He has made it clear that he wants to stop when he can no longer compete for victories at the sport’s biggest races.
Green jersey remains immediate priority
Although Pedersen has mapped out the end of his career, his focus remains firmly on the current Tour de France.
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The Lidl-Trek rider won stage four in Foix after surviving a demanding day in the breakaway and benefiting from outstanding support from teammates Quinn Simmons and Mathias Vacek.
The victory was Pedersen’s third Tour stage win and moved him into the green jersey as leader of the points classification. The stage-four report described how Lidl-Trek controlled the finale before Pedersen comfortably won the sprint.
After 11 stages, he leads the classification with 319 points, 43 ahead of Biniam Girmay.
No Danish rider has previously won the Tour’s green jersey. Pedersen has already taken the points classification at both the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España, meaning victory in Paris would complete the set across all three Grand Tours.
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The latest standings were confirmed after stage 11, when Pedersen finished tenth following Jasper Philipsen’s relegation and retained a commanding advantage.
One major prize still missing
Pedersen has achieved many of the goals he set earlier in his career, but one glaring omission remains on his record.
He has yet to win one of cycling’s five Monuments.
The Dane has repeatedly come close, finishing on the podium at both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. His durability, sprinting strength and ability on difficult terrain have made him a perennial contender in the cobbled Classics.
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Pedersen insisted that announcing a possible retirement date had not reduced his motivation.
He remains determined to win a Monument before putting his helmet away and believes one victory would only increase his appetite for another.
The retirement interview was described by ProCyclingUK as a deadline rather than the beginning of a farewell tour, with Pedersen continuing to target the green jersey and the biggest one-day races.
Family considerations influence decision
Pedersen also explained that life away from cycling had played a significant part in his thinking.
Professional riders spend much of the year travelling, racing and attending training camps, placing considerable pressure on family life.
Pedersen said he and his wife want to start a family and that he does not want to remain in the sport for so long that he is repeatedly absent during important years at home.
He has seen former teammates struggle to balance parenthood with the demands of professional cycling, an experience that helped shape his decision.
Rather than extending his career after his ability to challenge for victories begins to decline, Pedersen would prefer to step away slightly earlier and begin the next stage of his life.
He believes he has already accomplished much of what he wanted in the sport and remains confident that he can secure the final major prizes missing from his record before 2029.
For now, that means defending the green jersey at the Tour de France. In three years, the finish line could be Copenhagen.
