Mattias Skjelmose 🇩🇰
Skjelmose has been having quite a roller coaster of a season. It probably peaked when he won the general classification at the Tour de Suisse in June with days on each step of the podium (1,2,3) on stages within that Tour as well. Skjelmose has shown that he's a force to contend with.
And the lows of this roller coaster haven't been that low at all. Once it became apparent that teammate Ciccone had a chance at taking the King of the Mountains (KOM) jersey in the Tour de France he tactfully suited up to be Ciccone's loyal domestique.
Skjelmose was critical to pulling Ciccone to the top of the climbs. But that also meant his own ambitions had to be put on hold. Even as such he had five top ten performances in the Tour overall.
Other than that, this year he won the Danish national road race alongside placing second in the national time trial just behind Kasper Asgreen but ahead of Mikkel Bjerg.
Strengths
Apart from the Tour de France and Suisse, this man has shown he can ride the Classics with the best of them, placing 9th at Liège - Bastione - Liège, 2nd at La Flèche Wallonne, 8th at Amstel Gold, and 3rd at Gran Premio Miguel Indurian.
So in reality he's a triple threat. Skjelmose can climb well per the results in Suisse, can be a strong rouleur with the best of the big names, and his time trial is also well above average.
If we didn't know better we'd say he could rival Felix Gall for GC potential in 2024. Gall has all the media attention right now, but remember that you should buy low, sell high. And right now Skjelmose is undervalued in our opinion given that he had to be locked down to domestique for Ciccone and couldn't show his true form.
There might be something that he didn't have legs for an entire three week grand tour, but we're not in that camp. We really do think his lack of a stage win at the Tour or a potential KOM was due to "freedom" issues.
When to Bet
Honestly, Skjelmose is a pretty safe bet for anything. From the World Champs to future Tours. We're unsure if he's peaked yet, but we're hoping not. At only 22 this star has far more time to burn.
Interesting note is that according to our friends in the industry, Skjelmose was bet more often than Vingegaard for stage wins throughout the Tour by the Danes. Not that surprising in our minds, if you take into account Vingegaard's short odds on most stages and dearth of personality. We'd be unsurprised if Skjelmose was more popular.
In summary though, bet freely, and there's no specific gradient that Skjelmose definitely performs better on, but of the stages he's won it tends to be those above 7.5% where he can really make a mark. Think the final climb at La Flèche, or the beaut below from the Tour de Suisse.
