Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) was spotted reconning the course for Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Thursday, after luckily avoiding serious injury in the crash that forced him to abandon La Flèche Wallonne.
Following his shock win at Amstel Gold Race last Sunday ahead of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), it looked like Skjelmose's Ardennes Classics campaign was about to end when he crashed out of Wednesday's race on a wet corner 40km from the finish.
He remounted his bike before abandoning, having been in visible pain on the TV broadcast and initially believing his elbow to be broken. Later updates from the team and Skjelmose confirmed that he'd escaped the incident relatively unscathed without fractures, albeit still with some pain.
"Unfortunately, another crash that ruined my chances on a day with good legs! But this time I can’t blame it on bad luck, it was 100% my own fault that I crashed," explained the Dane on Wednesday evening via Instagram.
"As we came out of the corner, I accelerated too fast, which resulted in me crashing. Maybe I got a bit too eager to show off the good legs.
"I was in a lot of pain right after the crash and was momentarily afraid that my elbow was broken. Fortunately, it now looks like the pain was mostly a combination of being cold and taking a hard hit in the crash.
"I am in pain, but nothing is broken. Therefore, I’m still looking forward to racing again on Sunday."
The good news continued for Lidl-Trek when Skjelmose took part in their planned reconnaissance ride of the final 102km set to decide Sunday's race at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He was pictured riding up the Côte de la Redoute alongside Patrick Konrad and Thibau Nys, wrapped up in full wet gear as the rain fell in Wallonia again.
While the pain could see him missing the percentage points required to follow Pogačar and Evenepoel as he did last Sunday, Skjelmose will nonetheless still be confident of producing another shock result just seven days on from Amstel.
It's not the first time that the cold and wet weather has seen him come unstuck this season, with a crash on a rainy day at Paris-Nice also forcing him out of that race when his form had looked strong. With a dry and sunny forecast for Sunday's racing in the Ardennes, Skjelmose should be back in favoured conditions.
Whether he can pull off another shock in front of the superstars is a different question, as both Evenepoel and Pogačar will be trying to ensure they don't sprint against the Dane as they did last week. But he shouldn't be ruled out as the current third favourite.
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