Lidl-Trek deny that Skjelmose was forced to race Guangxi despite injury

Skjelmose lined up as one of the favourites for overall victory in the final WorldTour race of the season, but he abandoned on stage 3 due to the nagging effects of his back injury.
 

Ahead of the race, Skjelmose told Cyclingnews that he was not in Guangxi by choice, though he also stated that he would target overall victory if his condition allowed it.

Speaking to Domestique on Saturday, Andersen said that Skjelmose's participation in China had already been decided in July, and that the rider always had the freedom to withdraw if his back injury was hindering him.

"Normally it’s me who makes his plan and when he didn’t do Dauphiné and abandoned the Tour, I talked to him and said I thought it could be a good idea to go to China also. It was a bit hard to combine with Lombardia, but stage 5 is the first day he needed to be ready in China, so there was time to adapt to the time difference. We agreed on that and then this happened in Lombardia."

Skjelmose had suffered with a herniated disc in 2024 but the problem had not proven a hindrance this season. The Dane had showcased his form in recent weeks, most notably with fourth at the demanding World Championships in Rwanda, but he abandoned Il Lombardia with back pain. Despite the injury, he made the long trip to Guangxi for his final race of the year.

"He had back pain but not as last year, so there is only one person who really can tell us if he can race or not, and that's him," Andersen said. 
 

"He said he had back pain, but he didn’t say he couldn’t race, so we kept the plan and hoped for the best. Of course we knew it was a risk, no doubt about that, but when I saw the start list here, with the shape he had, he was coming to win if everything went well."

Skjelmose was more upbeat about his injury after the opening stage, but his condition deteriorated over the following days.
 

"He said, 'I can keep going but what should I do?'" Andersen said. "I told him, 'Mattias, it's your body. If you have the feeling you can’t do anything, then you don’t need to ride just to come through. You stop.'"
 

Skjelmose climbed off midway through stage 3, but he has remained with the team here in Guangxi, chatting amiably with Andersen as they waited for the start in Yizhou on Saturday morning.

"I see all the stories saying the team let him ride with a hernia. Of course we wouldn’t let him ride with a hernia if he had that," Andersen said. "He has back pain, yes, his back was fucked. But as I said, you never know, the first day was good and we were positive."

Skjelmose's season was crowned by his unexpected victory at Amstel Gold Race ahead of Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar, but Andersen believes his condition might have yielded more across the year had it not been for a series of "stupid crashes" in the spring, at Paris-Nice, Itzulia Basque Country and Flèche Wallonne. 
 

"It could have been a fabulous season" Andersen said. "He had a stupid crash at Flèche Wallonne, where he had the feeling that was his best day of the year. I don’t say he would beat Pogi, but he would have been there and then he would also have been better in Liège."
 

There was a sense of regret, too, at how illness ruined his Tour build-up.

"I believe he could have been in a very high place. I don’t say he would have beaten Lipowitz but last year in the Vuelta, he beat him by two minutes," Andersen said.

Skjelmose expressed a degree of perplexity at news of Juan Ayuso's arrival at Lidl-Trek next season, but Andersen insisted his compatriot's horizons haven't been narrowed by the signing.

"We already had a second GC leader, but Tao was not on the level we expected, so it’s not that Ayuso and Mattias will be in competition," he said. "They will talk and learn. Until now they have been competitors, so the first reaction is maybe like this, but it’s about the development of Lidl-Trek as a team."