Mattias Skjelmose gave one of the most inspiring performances in cycling in a year of foregone conclusions
It’s OK if you were confused by the result of the men’s Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. Mattias Skjelmose won, and he didn’t understand it either. He practically had to be convinced by team staff that, yes, he had just outsprinted the reigning World and Olympic champions at the line.
Skjelmose admitted after the race that he was fighting for third. He took a hard pull leading Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel up the final climb of the Cauberg thinking that it would help ensure that the peloton wouldn’t catch them, solidifying his podium spot behind two superpowers.
“Do not get dropped,” Skjelmose laughed after the race, remembering his thought process during the grueling final kilometers. “There was nothing really. I really had nothing left in the legs and the main goal was just to not get dropped. I was super happy to be in this group, and I was thinking that would be the best result.”
Mattias Skjelmose crying tears of joy after one of the most inspiring wins of the season in cycling.
You could forgive Skjelmose for his lack of faith. Pogačar hasn’t finished worse than third in one-day racing this year, winning Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders. Evenepoel won Brabantse Pijl on Friday in an impressive return to form following a bad training crash last December. But note that Skjelmose was only an underdog relative to the two riders next to him. The 24-year-old has been a rising star for some time now, winning the general classification at the Tour de Suisse in 2023, a year when he also took second in a sprint against Pogačar at Flèche Wallonne, and finished fifth on GC at the 2024 Vuelta a España.
So not an unknown rider by any stretch, but also an unlikely candidate to win this race. Skjelmose suffered a big crash at Paris-Nice that rudely interrupted his early season preparation. He had a nice return at Itzulia Basque Country earlier this month, taking fifth on the general classification, but nothing to presage a win of Amstel Gold’s magnitude. Skjelmose wasn’t even the Lidl-Trek rider many considered the most likely to ruin Pogačar’s party. Thibau Nys is uniquely suited to the punchy Ardennes classics, and is still a man to watch for Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday and Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday.
During the race, as Skjelmose and Evenepoel chased down Pogačar together over the final 25 kilometers, Skjelmose told Evenepoel multiple times that the Belgian would have to do most of the work if they were going to catch the Slovenian. This wasn’t a deceptive gambit — Skjelmose truly thought he was cooked. “I told him I wasn’t lying,” Skjelmose said.
But Skjelmose, ailing legs and all, was the best card that Lidl-Trek could play on the day. The team rode brilliantly, controlling the front of the race, and he was in perfect position to chase down Pogačar with the security of having Nys in the group just behind. Skjelmose said that he requested a dedicated domestique, Otto Vergaerde, for the first time in his career. “He always kept me in the perfect position. The team worked perfectly and that’s the only reason that I’m here.”
It didn’t matter whether Skjelmose thought he was the man to pull off what has felt like an insurmountable task (that is, beating Tadej Pogačar when your name isn’t Mathieu Van Der Poel.) He was one of only two riders with the opportunity. And in finishing the job — in a sprint, to the wind-exposed side of the road no less — he highlighted something that has perhaps gotten lost in a season of foregone conclusions: Just how big this sport really is.
After the race, Skjelmose teared up explaining that his grandfather had passed away earlier this year, that he has had to step up for his family in a difficult time in the midst of recovery, training, and racing, and that the win was dedicated to a man who had closely followed and supported his career.
From left to right: The Olympic champion, the World champion, and Mattias Skjelmose. | Photo by Luc Claessen/Getty Images
“It’s something I’ve been going with for a long time without really having the opportunity to express my feelings,” Skjelmose said. “I wanted to give him a win since I started the season, and this one is for him.
“I’m sad he couldn’t see it, but I’m sure he supported me from heaven today.”
Skjelmose’s story is unique to him, but hundreds of other riders also have journeys to share. To no one’s fault, except for collective human nature maybe, those stories sometimes get lost in the praise for the frequent victor. And because he pulled off an unimaginable result, Skjelmose’s story was given a prominence it richly deserved.
Sometimes it’s too easy to assume how the world will shake out. Certainly, riders like Pogačar and Evenepoel aren’t done winning races. But Skjelmose and Lidl-Trek showed Sunday the purpose of maintaining hope in the face of bad odds. When belief is in short supply, it’s the only way you will ever have your moment.
