Crazy! Skjelmose rides around China with a hernia: "It wasn’t my choice, my back is still pretty f*cked"

The problem dates back some time, when he injured his back at the breakfast table before the World Championships in cycling last year. Things went wrong again in the Tour of Lombardy. “Quite early in the race, my herniated disc started to annoy me again, and I had to abandon the race,” he told Cyclingnews. “It was quite sad as I was looking forward to racing Lombardy; it was my last big goal, but the body told me no.”

Despite injuring himself badly over the weekend, he traveled to China “as usual” to end his season in the Tour of Guangxi. But we shouldn't expect too much from the Danish climber. “I don't know, the back is still pretty f*cked, so we will see what I can do. Maybe I do 10 kilometres, maybe I do the whole race, only time will tell.”

“I think it would be really ambitious to say we will go for the GC now with the back, but, of course, we will try. We did a 30-hour journey, so it would be a shame to DNF the first day,” he said before the start of the opening stage won by Paul Magnier. Skjelmose finished the stage well.

But the key question is clear: why on earth is the Dane still at the start of a race when he has a hernia? "I cannot tell you, it was not my choice," he laughs awkwardly. “But the team said I should be here, and in normal circumstances it would be a chance to win a WorldTour race, and that's always nice.”

Lidl-Trek was eagerly seeking UCI points in the fall, which might explain the selection. “Also – I mean, now it's a bit unlikely that we can overtake Visma – but at some point, it was really close to fighting for second place in the [UCI] team ranking, and that would have meant a lot to us, so I think that was the reason for it.”

In any case, Skjelmose hopes that the injury won't get worse in China and that he can deal with it over the winter. “Now the back is the problem again, and that's something we need to find a solution for, but with the level I showed at Worlds and Amstel this year, after this race I can take a good break and I'm quite motivated for next year already.”