In the biggest win of his career and one of the races of the season, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) played the perfect hand to defeat both Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at a thrilling Amstel Gold Race , outsprinting both the Olympic and world champion to the line on Sunday.
Evenepoel led out and opened up the sprint just outside Valkenberg, with Pogačar poised in his wheel. The rainbow jersey came around him as Evenepoel was forced to sit down and accept defeat; however, the Dane emerged from Pogačar’s slipstream to shock everyone.
Pogačar looked set to ride into the distance from the peloton when he launched away solo from Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) and the whole field on the Kruisberg, after the pair had scorched away from the group of favourites one climb earlier up the Gulperberg with 47km to go.
However, the world champion showed signs that he is, in fact, human, with his gap barely extending further than 30 seconds as it tends to do when he goes alone. Behind, Evenepoel led the chase, exploding into life away from an uncooperative group with 25 kilometres to go.
The Olympic champion caught Skjelmose, who had also gone solo to try and chase Pogačar. Evenepoel did the lion’s share of the work in the final run for home, and incredibly, with 8km to ride, the 30-second lead had disappeared, and the catch was made.
However, with Skjelmose able to keep his powder dry as Evenepoel did most of the chasing, the Dane managed to save just enough for the exhilarating three-up sprint final, producing a true David and Goliath performance in the face of two of modern cycling’s great champions.
Asked if he could believe what he’d done, Skjelmose said, “No, I really don’t. I was telling Remco all the time that I was fucked and ‘Please, pull on the climbs, I’m on the limit’, and when we stopped, I only took pulls because I was riding for the podium,” said Skjelmose in his winner’s interview.
“Already, that would have been a really big result for me. I tried to keep the group going so they didn’t come back from behind. Of course, I sprinted for the best result, but I thought I was going to cramp and see them go into the horizon.”
Skjelmose couldn’t quite remember what happened in the final charge for the line, clearly in shock at what he’d just achieved.
“I think Remco did it perfect, I tried to have a big of a gap and go on the right, but Remco went right and fuck, Tadej went on the right as well, so I went on the left and I don’t know, I don’t know what happened,” he said.
“I didn’t believe it, I really didn’t believe it,” said Skjelmose, describing the moment he came around Pogačar. Then, the emotion came pouring out, and he dedicated the special win to his late grandfather.
“It means so much to me, I had so much bad luck already this season, I lost my grandad a bit more than a month ago, and I really wanted to give him a win, so this is for him.”
Mattias Skjelmose celebrates with his team after winning Amstel Gold Race (Image credit: Getty Images)
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