“Nobody on the team has achieved a better result at the Tour” - Mattias Skjelmose sends Lidl-Trek leadership message as Felix Gall joins increasingly crowded GC picture

Mattias Skjelmose has made his position within Lidl-Trek’s increasingly deep pool of Grand Tour leaders clear, pointing to his sixth place at the 2026 Tour de France as evidence that he has earned his place at the front of the queue.

The Dane’s comments come at an interesting moment for the American team. Felix Gall has now been confirmed as a Lidl-Trek rider for 2027 after a season in which the Austrian finished second at the Giro d’Italia and third at the Vuelta a Espana, adding another proven Grand Tour contender to a roster already containing Skjelmose, Juan Ayuso and Derek Gee-West.

Jordan Jegat, a top-10 finisher at each of the last two Tours de France, will also arrive next season.

Skjelmose, however, has no intention of surrendering his own status. “After all, I finished sixth at the Tour de France, which I think is a relatively good result,” the 25-year-old told TV 2 Sport following the Vuelta. “As far as I know, there’s nobody else on the team who is here right now who has achieved a better result at the Tour. So nobody can take that role away from me yet.”

That sixth place represented the strongest Grand Tour result of Skjelmose’s 2026 season and his best finish yet at the Tour. It also came after Lidl-Trek had entered July with more than one GC card to play. Ayuso arrived as one of the team’s headline leaders and spent much of the race ahead of Skjelmose in the standings, but the Dane gradually closed the gap before ultimately finishing one position ahead of the Spaniard in Paris.

Skjelmose had already shown his three-week credentials with fifth overall and the young rider classification at the 2024 Vuelta, but his Tour performance this summer offered a stronger indication that he could compete at that level in cycling’s biggest race.

The challenge now is that Lidl-Trek’s ambitions are expanding at much the same rate as his own. Gall arrives with two Grand Tour podiums from 2026 alone, while Gee-West finished fifth at this year’s Giro. Ayuso remains tied to the team on a long-term deal and has been recruited as one of the central figures in its stage-racing project, while Jegat provides yet another established top-10 option.

For Skjelmose, the argument is straightforward: whatever the depth around him, nobody currently at Lidl-Trek has bettered sixth place at the Tour.

Gall’s move gives Lidl-Trek another rider who can reasonably expect opportunities of his own. As mentioned already, the Austrian’s 2026 season has pushed him into a different category after podium finishes at both the Giro and Vuelta, and Lidl-Trek managing director Andy Schleck has already described him as a genuine Grand Tour podium contender.

That makes the allocation of leadership across 2027 increasingly intriguing, particularly when the team already has riders capable of targeting all three Grand Tours.

But Schleck has also been emphatic that Skjelmose remains central to the project. “We want to develop ‘Skelly’,” he told TV 2 Sport. “He has many years ahead of him and we want to shape him for the future, and we see this as the best preparation. He went through some difficult moments, and he overcame them with his strength. We want a better Mattias next year, and riding two Grand Tours in one season will make him stronger, including the difficult moments he has gone through.”

Those difficult moments came during a Vuelta which ended far differently to Skjelmose’s Tour. He entered the final week still seventh overall, having remained in and around the upper reaches of the classification throughout the race, but illness and fatigue took their toll. A difficult final sequence saw him eventually fall to 13th overall. It was the first season of his career in which he had contested two Grand Tours.

Despite the late decline in Spain, Skjelmose believes the experiment can ultimately make him a stronger rider. “After the Tour, I’m more confident in the role and I trust my own abilities more,” he said. “I’m happy with my season and what I’ve delivered in the two Grand Tours. It didn’t turn into a big result at the Vuelta this time, but everyone around me has seen how I’ve been riding and how I’ve been feeling, so 13th place is a perfectly decent result.”

The physical cost has nevertheless been significant. Skjelmose withdrew from Denmark’s World Championship squad after the Vuelta, having admitted that his body could take no more following a season built around both the Tour and Vuelta.

For Lidl-Trek, that workload was part of the development process rather than simply an attempt to collect another GC result. “That has been the plan, to push the body so far that it could build something it hasn’t had before,” Skjelmose explained. “We won’t find out whether that has happened for another couple of months. But I’m convinced that once I get home and recover, it’ll all turn out well.”

By then, the competition around him will be stronger again. Gall’s arrival gives Lidl-Trek another Grand Tour podium finisher, but Skjelmose heads into the winter with one result none of his current teammates can yet match: sixth place at the Tour de France.