'We could have been fighting for victory with Skjelmose': Ayuso encouraged after Lidl’s near miss in Tour opener

Jonas Vingegaard pulled on the first yellow jersey of the race after Visma delivered the fastest ride of the day. Netcompany-Ineos finished second at 7 seconds, while UAE Team Emirates-XRG came home third at 11 seconds. Lidl-Trek crossed the line just a few seconds further back, close enough to leave Ayuso thinking about the victory that got away.

“We were unlucky because I think we could have taken the victory with Skjelmose,” Ayuso said after the finish in the flash interview.

The Spaniard was the final Lidl-Trek rider to cross the line on the uphill drag toward Montjuïc, exactly as planned. Skjelmose’s puncture, however, cost Lidl-Trek one of its most important engines for the decisive part of the course. 

The team also lost Quinn Simmons before the finish, which left the remaining riders with a heavier job on the flat roads before the final climb.

Ayuso still left Barcelona in a strong general classification position. He sits fourth overall, 16 seconds behind Vingegaard, and begins the race in the white jersey as leader of the young rider classification. 

Still, the feeling inside Lidl-Trek was that the result could have been even better.

“We lost time not only in the final relay but also on the flat, but it is what it is and we have to keep going,” Ayuso said.

Speaking on Lidl-Trek’s social media channels, sports director Steven de Jongh also pointed to the loss of Skjelmose as a costly moment, while praising the way the team reacted.

“I think the boys really well executed the loss of Skelly [Skjelmose], because he had a mechanical and that was a pity for us,” De Jongh said. “We will for sure lose time in the final. Without him, we were not as fast as planned, but it can happen.”

“It’s a bummer, but in the end we finished really good,” he continued. “We finished up there and with Juan in the white, I think it’s a super nice ending. At least we are on the podium.”

The effort was visible immediately after the line. Ayuso was one of the riders lying completely spent on the ground, having emptied himself in the final metres. Much of that suffering came from trying to follow Mathias Vacek, who produced one of the standout performances of the day for Lidl-Trek.

“I was suffering behind Vacek,” Ayuso said. “The level that he and Mads Pedersen have is incredible. I just did my part, and we’ll keep going.”

For De Jongh, the time gaps offered plenty of encouragement.

“We are only four seconds behind UAE and 15 behind Visma,” De Jongh said. “I think that shows that we have done a really good TTT. We were expecting this to be good and be up there, but the mechanical was a bummer. But that’s life, no?”

Lidl-Trek did not get the stage win, but the opening stage still gave them plenty to take into the next days. Ayuso is in white and Vingegaard is only 16 seconds away. For a ride disrupted by a mechanical at the wrong moment, that is a result the team could live with.

As De Jongh put it, there are still “20 more stages.”