Mattias Skjelmose called his ride at Wednesday’s Flèche Wallonne “one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life”. The Dane experienced the onset of hypothermia from the cold, rainy conditions on the second of four climbs of the Mur de Huy, and could not continue the race, where he finished runner-up last year.
The Dane told reporters today that he has recovered and has set his sights on being a contender at this Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where he was ninth in 2023. This time, he’ll have to face favourites Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who have both taken Monuments this year.
“I have indeed not been able to show myself yet, unfortunately, but I do know how I felt on the bike. I really felt good in the Amstel and that was also the case during the first ascent of the Mur de Huy in the Flèche Wallonne, just before I got freezing cold,” Skjelmose told reporters on a video call on Thursday, much of his comments reported by Wielerflits.
“I am really convinced that I will fight for the podium on Sunday in Liège. My [podium] - one, two, three? I see myself standing there with Tadej and Mathieu. But we will see in what order that is on Sunday.”
His Lidl-Trek team called the conditions at La Fleche Wallonne “brutal”, as the peloton was battered with rain and hailstones, the temperate dropping to just 1°C at one point and even snowflakes defining the harsh conditions.
“I don’t know if we made a mistake, but UAE went quite early yesterday in Fleche, just when the hailstorm came, and I tried to follow. It meant I couldn’t get my rain jacket on. But luckily, Toms Skujiņš was already on his way to me but I needed to follow at the front and I ended up getting so cold that I couldn’t put my jacket on and I couldn’t recover,” he told media.
“I didn’t realise I was hypothermic on the bike, I was shaking, but I thought I could recover but when I stopped on the Mur for the second time, I couldn’t control myself. That was one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever done.”
Skjelmose and four other teammates pulled out of the race. In fact, a total of 131 riders in the peloton recorded DNFs at the mid-week race in the Belgian Ardennes. Of the 44 who finished, Skujiņš was 12th.
Afterwards, Lidl-Trek confirmed that Skjelmose and other riders were taken to the team bus where they had warm showers, hot drinks and were feeling better. So much better, Skjelmose said, that on Thursday, he and his teammates rode the final 95km of the Liège route for reconnaissance, noting, “I had muscle pain, but eventually I felt a lot better three hours later” following the ride.
Just 23 years old, Skjelmose was shown on video during his ordeal shivering uncontrollably by a roadside spectator, with team staff lifting him off his bike and carrying him to the podium area at the finish line and getting him to the warmth of the team bus. He was asked if those images were appropriate to be shown before a full diagnosis, in light of controversies surrounding images of the horrific crash at the recent Tour of the Basque Country, which took out Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe), his teammate Natnael Tesfatsion and others.
“Given the current situation, I think it is good that those images are there. I think a lot of fans don't understand why so many guys have left the race. Of course, not everyone was in the same state as I was, but this gave the fans a good idea of what the weather conditions were like,” said the Dane.
“If I had ended up in the hospital in a very bad condition, I would have thought about it differently. In the Tour of the Basque Country the situation was completely different, for example. But now it showed the situation well. It was also no problem for my loved ones. They knew very quickly that I was OK, even though the images were, of course, quite extreme.”
Already this season, he had a podium at the Faun-Ardèche Classic, a stage win and third at Paris-Nice and was third overall at Itzulia Basque Country. While he finished 17th at Amstel Gold Race and could not finish Liège, the Dane confirmed the form is there and the focus as well for Sunday.
“What I take away from those two Classics is that I am in the shape of my life,” he said.
