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Mattias Skjelmose: The Blonde Assassin

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What's his best quality? He got a lot of top 5 places this year already. He's fast also, but didn't know he could do this on the Mur. How is he as a climber or TT'er?

He's pretty much a complete rider, except for one thing.

He climbs well, both steep punchy gradients and long climbs.

He's a very good TT rider (bronze at last years Danish Championships albeit without Vingegaard, Asgreen, Bjerg & Kragh competing).

He is fast enough on the line to hang with the fast puncheurs in a flat sprint, and beat them on a punchy uphill finish.

He's good on positioning and riding cross winds, and generally quite adept tactically.

However, which is the big unknown in terms of what kind of career he will get, he has appeared to struggle with recovery in stage races, where he tends to fade, even in some 1 week races.

He's still relatively green though and just 22, so that is an area he can possibly still improve upon (Vingegaard had those isuees at the same age as well).

TdF this year will be a big test for him, it's his second GT and the first one as a protected rider.

If it turns out he's not GT material, he will still be a candidate in the Ardennes, Strade, M-SR, Il Lombardia and hilly 1-week races in years to come.

As for Flanders, we don't know, I don't think he's ever been on cobbles.
 
He's a great rider for sure. I still remember Mollema saying at the start of last years season: "Watch out for this guy, he's the whole package." or something of the sorts.
I'm just wondering if he'll also be their main man for LBL? I mean, obviously Giulio is in great shape as well..

I think Ciccone was the main man at FW, he was the guy the team positioned on Pogacar's wheel, while Skjelmose was sort of floating on his own 4-5 positions back.

Those roles may be reversed for LBL however, as Skjelmose looked to have been able to match Pogacar's kick, had he not been out of position and held up by having to go wide to clear Woods.

Beating Pogacar on the line however, is a whole other proposition ;)
 
Trek won't need to go with a sole protected rider, they are not expected to control the race.

It's more about not having to work for the team yourself, and to have riders dedicated to keeping you out of the wind, getting bidons for you, closing gaps for you, etc. - than being able to control the race.

It's not the full team though, as Pedersen needs people for the fight for Green.
 
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It's more about not having to work for the team yourself, and to have riders dedicated to keeping you out of the wind, getting bidons for you, closing gaps for you, etc. - than being able to control the race.

It's not the full team though, as Pedersen needs people for the fight for Green.
I thought we were talking about Liege.
Neither Ciccone nor Skjelmose will be asked to work for others on Sunday (unless the race situations dictates one has to sacrifice for the other late in the race).
 
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I think Ciccone was the main man at FW, he was the guy the team positioned on Pogacar's wheel, while Skjelmose was sort of floating on his own 4-5 positions back.

Those roles may be reversed for LBL however, as Skjelmose looked to have been able to match Pogacar's kick, had he not been out of position and held up by having to go wide to clear Woods.

Beating Pogacar on the line however, is a whole other proposition ;)
Nah, Ciccone said before the race that Skjelmoser was the main guy, Mollema mainly worked to position him well, not Ciccone.
 
I thought we were talking about Liege.
Neither Ciccone nor Skjelmose will be asked to work for others on Sunday (unless the race situations dictates one has to sacrifice for the other late in the race).

Ah, thought you referred to what I wrote on TdF.

Sure they will go with both protected for LBL, as they did for Fleche, but to me it seemed clear Ciccone was the captain (and priority) wednesday, and I think they may reverse that for Sunday, because they saw Skjelmose can outpace him on gradients.
 
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Nah, Ciccone said before the race that Skjelmoser was the main guy, Mollema mainly worked to position him well, not Ciccone.

Ok, that seems odd to me, as leadiing into the last time on the Mur and the first part of it, Ciccone had 2 guys leading him to Pogacar's wheel, while Skjelmose was floating on his own.

But it may of course just have been a failure on the part of the guys dedicated to Skjelmose, not a deliberate tactic.
 
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Lmao, youre quite delusional: "Those roles may be reversed for LBL however, as Skjelmose looked to have been able to match Pogacar's kick, had he not been out of position and held up by having to go wide to clear Woods.

Beating Pogacar on the line however, is a whole other proposition"

F-W is quite the mickey mouse race compared to Liege, lets be totally honest now. Impressive, but lets see on Sunday when the race gets really hard and Skjeldmose has struggled previously this year when its just pure endurance tests.
 
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The Blonde Assassin? He's a grizzly.

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With his team entire team likely to drop tomorrow on Furkapass I think Skjelmose realized that being a dominant factor today was a sure way to get the entire peloton against him tomorrow. I think he gambled on distancing Remco tomorrow and Gall in the TT to win this thing.

Might be the smartest choice to win this race giving his lack of team support, allthough from a racing perspective it doesn’t look to nice. I think Skjelmose is one of those old smart foxes despite being so young. Which is very contradicting with the racing style often seen nowadays.
 
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With his team entire team likely to drop tomorrow on Furkapass I think Skjelmose realized that being a dominant factor today was a sure way to get the entire peloton against him tomorrow. I think he gambled on distancing Remco tomorrow and Gall in the TT to win this thing.

Might be the smartest choice to win this race giving his lack of team support, allthough from a racing perspective it doesn’t look to nice. I think Skjelmose is one of those old smart foxes despite being so young. Which is very contradicting with the racing style often seen nowadays.
He probably needs a solid gap to Remco before the final TT.
 
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He probably needs a solid gap to Remco before the final TT.
Agreed, so it is a gamble for sure. But the other option was having multiple other contenders riding against him tomorrow, which also almost always doesn’t end well in these kind of races. Bit similar to Pinot in Dauphine 2020, but then with a worse team over a longer distance of climbing + flat.

This way he also saves some extra energy running into the Tour.
 
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Rarely seen someone in the leader's jersey looking so chill when attacked.
Don't know whether it was strategy or just lack of legs, but he sure is in the perfect position now (assuming he has the legs to attack tomorrow).
Said in an exit interview he wanted to lose the jersey, but with as little time as possible, and thought it was perfect to lose it to Gall, given his poorer TT.
 
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