Mattias Skjelmose finished off a day of remarkable Trek-Segafredo teamwork by taking the win atop Mont Bouquet, the Queen Stage, and moves into the race lead with one stage remaining, a 10km time trial.
Reaction from Mattias Skjelmose:
It was a pretty special day, full stretch from the first part and then Mads just told me straight away “take it easy, stay with me.” Even though we were pretty far back he just took it out to the left and easily put me in the first group without me having to stress. Then Mads, Jacopo and Toms worked like motherf*ckers all day. I didn’t need to do anything, I only had to pay attention to eat and drink and keep myself out of the wind. Then I just had to finish off their work. When the team works like they did today there’s no such thing as bad legs, you only can have good legs and I’m so happy I could finish it off.
We had a plan and we didn’t think that it would kick off like that, just that it would be more stressful like the first days but then suddenly it happened and we were there so we kept it going. We kept the effort all the way to the finish which I think is amazing because there were a lot more guys working in the peloton than in our group.
I actually hoped the other guys would follow Powless. When they didn’t, the gap was too big so I had to wait a little bit for the steep part so I didn’t drag the other guys across. At the steep part I did my own rhythm over to Powless. I felt pretty good in the end so I’m happy with how it went.
I think it’s the best situation for me to be in. I’m really motivated after today and I just want to finish it off so I can pay back the guys for all their work.
