Skjelmose climbed the Mur de Huy almost as fast as Seixas, but it wasn't too be: 'That's what we were missing'

Mattias Skjelmose lined up at La Flèche Wallonne as one of the top favourites following his second place at the Amstel Gold Race, but couldn't deliver on the Mur de Huy. The Dane rode a very strong final climb, but had to do it from deep in the field. Afterwards, he spoke to TV2 about what had gone wrong.

In South Limburg on Sunday, Skjelmose had been the only rider able to follow Remco Evenepoel, and so he arrived in Wallonia with a target on his back. When the camera searched out the top favourites on the final ascent of the Mur de Huy, Skjelmose was barely visible. He still came through impressively to finish fifth.

He initially rode past the line without stopping, but at the team bus he took time to speak to TV2. "I got dropped a little... Carlos [Verona] tried to help me, and there was a whole group of Groupama riders with him."

"There was a fight for position at the front, and when the road narrowed from two lanes to one, I got pushed really far back. After that it was almost a sprint from the roundabout to the top instead of from the 200-metre mark," Skjelmose sighed.

So what went wrong? "I think we reacted too late, and there are quite a few riders who haven't raced much together yet this year, so we haven't built up a group feeling. That's why we don't know how to react and follow each other. That's what we were missing."

"I don't know whether I could have beaten Paul [Seixas]," Skjelmose added, "but I'm fairly certain I could have done better than fifth. I knew I'd missed the win, but I kept believing in a podium right to the end. I told the boys all day that I believed I could win. I still believe that — if I'd been better positioned," he concluded.