"There is someone in the world who can beat Tadej on the Mur de Huy" - Skjelmose beat Pogacar at Amstel, but he believes teammate can do the job at Flèche Wallonne

Mattias Skjelmose put in the ride of his life to win Amstel Gold Race ahead of Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel. However he remains realistic on his chances of repeating this, and he believes that for Flèche Wallonne it is actually his teammate Thibau Nys who has the best chances of beating the World Champion, not him.

“I have said it before, and I will keep repeating it: there is someone in the world who can beat Tadej on the Mur de Huy, and that is Thibau," Skjelmose said in an interview with Sporza. "If he has his day on Wednesday, then he is the card we should draw, I think".

The Belgian classic will be a different affair than that of Amstel, with less distance and steeper climbs - a race that is ultimately better adapted to the climbers. This would on paper benefit the Dane, but he has a lot of belief in Thibau Nys after what he put out in the last few weeks.

Nys is a rider that has been talking about the mid-week classic for several months, and last year showed incredibly potential as a puncheur. In the final day of Itzulia Basque Country and Amstel Gold Race he showed good form and capacity to deal with longer efforts, which would make him very dangerous in a potential battle up the final Mur de Huy.

"Thibau will not be our only leader," team DS Maxime Monfort shared with Wielerflits however. "With Mattias Skjelmose and Andrea Bagioli we have a strong classics team. It is a bit of a gamble to compete for the prizes in those races on your first participation, but with Thibau you never know. I don't know if the Muur is just too steep, but it seems to me that the climb suits him very well."