Skjelmose shows just how great a Dane he is!

The young Dane proved just what great shape he is on the slopes of the final climb to Villars-sur-Ollon dropping all of his General Classification to take a solo victory.

How it happened:

Trek-Segafredo started the day with one clear goal: setting Skjelmose up for the final climb.

And… they absolutely delivered!

The Team rallied around Skjelmose all day, keeping him well-protected in the bunch right from the start of the stage and making sure that before the descent of the first climb, he was in the right position, ready for the final showdown.

Skjelmose reacted quickly, and with what looked like relative ease, after an attack from the Rainbow Jersey, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal – Quick-Step) with the pair also joined by Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën Team) going into the final five kilometers.

A move from Gall saw the World Champion put under pressure but Skjelmose’s grit and determination (not mention talent!) saw him push on to catch the leader before eventually making his own impressive attack to ride into the home stretch solo and punch the air with delight as he crossed the line.

#tds2023 #TourdeSuisse A show of brains and brawn from @skjelmose_ pic.twitter.com/AFUguVo5Mb

— Trek-Segafredo (@TrekSegafredo) June 13, 2023

I had a really big question mark about my climbing ability. Ok this is maybe not the hardest mountain stage but it’s still a long climb and I did really good, so I think we can make it a bit of a smaller question mark. It’s also my first WorldTour win so it’s incomparable.

Quickstep put a really hard pace in the bottom of the climb and I think everybody was suffering a lot. I thought Remco was trying to play a bit worse than he actually was, but in the end he was not on a super day or is still finding the legs after the Giro, which I respect a lot. I worked on this since Liège, after seven days off, then straight to work on this for the Tour and this race. I think it worked out pretty good but we will have to see until Sunday how my recovery is working, but for now we definitely did a really good job, me and my coach.

I was more worried about Felix Gall (than Remco) because when he attacked he went really fast and I wasn’t sure if Remco was playing games or he was on the limit.

My plan was to stay calm, I know we will have some really hard days in the next two days and before this I had struggled a bit with recovery so I wanted to stay as calm as possible and stay with the best guys to see what I could do. In my eyes Remco is the best rider here, so when he went I tried to follow as best as I could. I was not sure I could follow Felix because he went really strong and I had to make a big effort to close him. Luckily for me he was also suffering a bit, and I know I have a good kick in the end and I used that to finish the job. To beat Remco, whatever the shape, is a big achievement for someone like me.

We will try our best (to defend jersey). There are a lot of strong teams and it can be difficult. Hopefully we can defend it until the last TT and then it will be all up to me.