Mattias Skjelmose is in China this week where he had started the Tour of Guangxi, but abandoned with back pain as he had previously announced before the race. At the race, manager Kim Andersen talked about the setbacks the Dane experienced this year and how it turned it into a difficult season despite beating Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel at Amstel Gold Race.
“It could have been a fabulous season. He had a stupid crash at Flèche Wallonne, where he had the feeling that was his best day of the year. I don’t say he would beat Pogi, but he would have been there and then he would also have been better in Liège.”
The Dane was en route for a podium at Paris-Nice until he crashed on the penultimate stage, and the crash at Flèche ruined the final days of his spring. Then, he was ill and in doubt for the Tour de France, which he then began but also had to abandon.
“I believe he could have been in a very high place. I don’t say he would have beaten Lipowitz but last year in the Vuelta, he beat him by two minutes”. After the Tour the situation stabilized and he finally managed to train consistently and reach form that led him to finish fourth at the World Championships and seventh at the European Championships, but at Il Lombardia his back issues restarted. There is a separate story on how the stories don’t align within Lidl-Trek regarding his participation in the Chinese race whilst he was already experiencing back pain. Juan Ayuso
Andersen also calmed down the expectations that there could be an internal dispute with Juan Ayuso, after Skjelmose’s words of not having been told by the team but also that it doesn’t align with what had been promised to him – full focus, in particular at the 2026 Giro d’Italia.
“We already had a second GC leader, but Tao was not on the level we expected, so it’s not that Ayuso and Mattias will be in competition,” he added. With Giulio Ciccone also apparently giving up on Grand Tour ambitions, then effectively there are only two Grand Tour cards to play in the team. “They will talk and learn. Until now they have been competitors, so the first reaction is maybe like this, but it’s about the development of Lidl-Trek as a team.”