Teams & Riders Mattias Skjelmose: The Blond Assassin

[Boehmand]

Fighting for position and insisting not dropping a single second in the first 10 stages or so will cost significant energy. Add the fact that Skjelmose is not protected and risking crashing, the effort is not worth it imo. Anyway, I know these guys will continue the normal plan and just hang on for as long as possible etc, but heres to hoping for a different, more aggressive approach. Note: This is not meant to single out Skjelmose, rather I'm using him as general case.

I see your point, but I'd still make the same choice to not drop time till it was needed.

You'd be kicking yourself for the rest of your life, if you dropped 20 minutes on purpose the first week and then Pogacar and Vingegaard crashed out on stage 8

 

[Boehmand]

I don’t think it’s too bad as long as he intends to be aggressive in the opening week. He is quite a punchy rider who could snag a hilly stage even from the favourites group if Pogacar/MVDP started looking only at each other and let others slip away.

Obviously if he got a stage in the first week, this is all a moot point.

If he got the stage win early, the rest of the race would be wholly focused on GC.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Skjelmose has crashed in Maryland - and abandoned. He crashes more often than Kelderman.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Skjelmose has crashed in Maryland - and abandoned. He crashes more often than Kelderman.

I hope he is good enough for Rwanda.

 

[RedheadDane]

I hope he is good enough for Rwanda.

Given his most recent statistic in one-day races, it seems he'll either win...
Or crash out.
What's the road sign situation in Rwanda?

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Given his most recent statistic in one-day races, it seems he'll either win...
Or crash out.
What's the road sign situation in Rwanda?

They probably have them there as well.

 

[RedheadDane]

They probably have them there as well.

Oh, well... at least turning into an icicle is probably unlikely.
That leaves one question:
What kind of chairs do they have at breakfast?

 

[Danskebjerge]

"Without the victory at Amstel, it would have been a really bad season," says Skjelmose in an interview (made in Rwanda, I believe).

I agree with him there. And the signing of Ayuso doesn't work in Skjelmose's favour either. In fact, his many crashes and other problems are likely to have contributed to the decision to add a GC rider to the team.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Skjelmose out there questioning the signing, not realizing that they will hardly do races together, and without focusing on not crashing himself for no reason multiple times during the season during his season goals. Fix that, and do what you're best at instead - one day races and one week races.

Pathetic interview.

 

[RedheadDane]

I assume Ayuso is unrelated to Skjelmose.

That is a fairly safe assumption.

 

[buddy buddy buddy]

great race, not bad

about the gc plans; he was considerably better than florian lipowitz in last year's vuelta, is younger too, and could maybe have been at the same kind of level in the tdf if not for the crashes

 

[Danskebjerge]

Skjelmose scored (almost?) just as many UCI points for his 4th place in Rwanda as for his Amstel win. Those two results more or less save his season. At the same time, they show that his goals should be paved classics and short stage races.

 

[Red Rick]

Screw stage races.

Skjelmose should add Strade, Sanremo, and RVV to his schedule next year.

Do Suisse for GC

Do Tour for KoM/stages

then WC and fall classics.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Can Skjelmose really ride 250 kilometers in RVV without hitting a road furniture or somehow find another way to crash?

 

[HashRouge]

Can Skjelmose really ride 250 kilometers in RVV without hitting a road furniture or somehow find another way to crash?

No.

 

[Netserk]

great race, not bad

about the gc plans; he was considerably better than florian lipowitz in last year's vuelta, is younger too, and could maybe have been at the same kind of level in the tdf if not for the crashes

Lol, no farking way. He doesn't have it to ever podium a GT, not even if he had Pidders's circumstances this year.

 

[buddy buddy buddy]

oh yes he can if florian lipowitzmann can

 

[Cycling111]

Those who use this World Championship to encourage cyclists to go to RVV don't understand what the RVV cobble are, or the number of accidents they cause because the entry to the sections is very narrow.
This World Championship had wide roads, and the tricky cobbles were in Mur Kigali.

Cyclists who have accidents, poor positioning, or have had difficulties on Mur Kigali cobbles shouldn't go to RVV for their physical safety. And their result will be worse.

Kimihurura is a highway compared to the Flanders sections.

 

[Netserk]

Lipo is a future GT winner, doesn't make sense to compare the shellfish to him.

 

[Red Rick]

oh yes he can if florian lipowitzmann can

"Rider A did better than Rider B at x point in the past, so if Rider B exceeds Rider A by any amount in the future then that means Rider A can do better than whatever Rider B does" is not logic that works in cycling in any way.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

and could maybe have been at the same kind of level in the tdf if not for the crashes

Yes and maybe so could Fausto

 

[buddy buddy buddy]

right, florian lipowitzman took like a hundred steps forward since last year, just like in comparison with the previous year. if these giant steps continue he will beat up pogacar all day next season, no one could compete against that

at the same time it is comparable, it does matter that one rider was actually better in the race both participated in

 

[Cycling111]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1975072752974627215

View: https://x.com/Domestique___/status/1975072752974627215?t=lAb9I-DD8Q0pJDU1jIpkiw&s=19

 

[Lurkerman]

I'm Danish, and so a lot of headlines I see go like "Skjelmose: it's a$$" or "Skjelmose: f' cking amazing feeling" or "Skjelmose: that was some sh ! t". Of course he can't entirely help how media frames, they can be populist (a populist leader is also someone who teaches the public that it's OK to use swear-words), but clearly he's a big potty-mouth. I'm not opposed to swear-words, not at all, but it's an art-form. Swear-words are ultimately directed at language itself, as in, a big FU man to all you grammar, syntax, rules when I have something more important say, I don't have the patience for this. As such, swearing as indiscriminately as Skjelmose could mean a lot of things, it could be megalomania ("language is a totalitarian apparatus designed to oppress my wild nature") or otherwise just laziness or inability to express yourself/lack of education. Point is, he doesn't come across as particularly bright, and neither does Mads Pedersen who is a bit better but who still also regularly give rise to headlines like "Pedersen: looks like feces" when it's about Campernaerts' helmet or something? So I think that Lidl-Trek is a bit of a fart factory, don't think they're the best ambassadors for our sport here in Denmark, Vingegaard can swear too (I think he did on Geraint Thomas' podcast) but at least he seem to recognize a bit more that probably that's not his big talent and so he keeps it at a minimum