INTERVIEW | Little pressure for Mattias Skjelmose's GC goal at the Vuelta: "Jonas takes off the pressure, because obviously he's a f*cking incredible cyclist"

Lidl-Trek are one of the teams entering the Vuelta a España with a team heavily focusing on GC and it's climbers. In the lead is Mattias Skjelmose who is racing for the first time in pursuit of an overall classification at the Grand Tour, and has said that he is hoping this race is a building block before the 2025 Tour de France.

In a pre-race press conference, the Dane widely discussed his ambitions and preparation into the third Grand Tour of his career. However, this is the first time he starts with GC ambitions. What has he changed? "Obviously I'm older; I've got another pro season in the legs; I did a lot more altitude throughout the whole year; and I'm coming into the race a lot fresher physically and mentally," Skjelmose told CyclingUpToDate. "I haven't raced a lot in the last two months. I think with recovery being one of my biggest problems I see that as quite important".

The Dane is one of the few riders who specifically decided to skip the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France so as to focus on the Spanish Grand Tour. Throughout the season he has taken podium results at Itzulia Basque Country as well as a fourth place in Paris-Nice. In Suisse he was only beaten by Adam Yates and João Almeida, and in his opinion these might be the two main favourites to win the final three-week race of the year.

"The two UAE leaders Adam [Yates] and João [Almeida]. Obviously [they were] a quite bit better than me in Suisse" he answers regarding the main favourites. But there is nuance in his words: "I haven't really raced with the other guys I think. Without being sure who's at the startlist, I think they are going to make it super tough. They did great at the Tour both also, in general I think it's a super good peloton in this Vuelta".

With Jonas Vingegaard having won the Tour de France two times, it would be expected that the Danish audience would be more demanding of it's riders when it comes to results in the three-week races. But surprisingly, the 23-year shares the exact opposite opinion.

"No, I think actually quite the opposite. Jonas takes off the pressure, because obviously he's a fucking incredible cyclist and really gifted," he believes. "And I think it would be a lot more difficult for me if he wasn't there, because obviously then all the pressure would only be on me. Obviously I haven't performed in Grand Tours yet and that would be a lot worst".