"I had a great time here. It was a really nice trip" - Mattias Skjelmose takes 7th victory of the season at the Maryland Cycling Classic

Mattias Skjelmose lived up to his tag of pre-race favourite at the Maryland Cycling Classic, taking a brilliant victory in Baltimore, U.S.A, for his seventh win of the season.

“I am very happy with this. This competition is very important for Lidl-Trek and we won here by working very well together as a team, which makes it special,” said the Dane in his post-race interview. “Toms Skujins was super strong and I was super strong, so I think we could have done both. We took turns attacking, cracking the rest of the lead group as I attacked last. I was actually still hoping for a situation like in Denmark when Pedersen and I became one and two.”

In the end, Skujins came home in fifth with a pair of North Americans rounding out the podium behind Skjelmose with Neilson Powless in second and Hugo Houle third.

“Everyone worked great. Asbjørn Hellemose did a great job of putting us in position, putting us in the first group with five men," Skjelmose recaps. "Then we kept attacking until we were satisfied. I also want to say that I had a great time here. It was a really nice trip and I had a lot of fun.”