Up-and-coming Danish star Mattias Skjelmose and Lidl-Trek have confirmed that he will continue with the squad through to 2028, extending his current contract by two years.
A pro since 2021, Skjelmose has made versatility one of his strong points in his career to date, hiting the big time with overall victories in the Tour de Suisse and Danish National Championships in 2023, then claiming the Best Young Rider's jersey and fifth overall in the Vuelta a España in 2024.
However, even those results were arguably eclipsed by even greater success at the Amstel Gold Race in 2025, where Skjelmose provided one of the biggest upsets of the season by beating both the all-conquering Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and former double Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) in a three-up sprint for the line.
Despite injury challenges later in the year, Skjelmose bounced back in style with a fourth place at the World Championships in Rwanda. He will now look for repeat success in the Ardennes in 2026, as well as returning to both the Tour de France, where he'll race as a support rider for new signing Juan Ayuso, before making his own bid to shine in the Grand Tours at the Vuelta a España.
"Extending my contract with Lidl-Trek means everything to me," Skjelmose said in a team press release. "I’ve said it a lot of times before, and I’ll probably say it many more times in the future. This team is my family, I find myself at home, and I couldn’t see myself riding anywhere else.
"It’s been a super special journey. When I came into the team, Vincenzo Nibali was the big star here, and now with Lidl, Trek and other huge sponsors the project has become so much bigger."
Speaking in a press conference at his team's training camp in Spain last week, it emerged Skjelmose had been unaware that the team had also decided Ayuso would also be present in the Lidl line-up for La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, saying simply "that's news to me." However, he quickly turned things around and argued that he was "confident that he'd be able to work well with the young Spanish racer all the same."
"The Ardennes were always my favourite races, and of course, winning Amstel helped that decision a lot." As for Liège, where his best result is ninth in 2023 from four participations, Skjelmose added, "I still have unfinished business there, too."
"I wasn't expecting it, and I think nobody expects it when they start a race with both of them," Skjelmose, who said the photo of the winning sprint is now on his mother's homepage on social media, meaning "it's difficult to avoid seeing it but for sure it's a day I'm not going to forget, anyway."
"It's the biggest result of my career, both because it's Amstel, but also because of the fact that I beat Remco and Tadej on the line.
"I think 49 times out of 50, they're going to beat me for sure. But I think what I realised in Amstel is that if I have a day where I do everything correctly from kilometre 0 to the finish and they make a few mistakes along the way, I have a shot, and I think other riders also have a shot. However, it also means that they need to make mistakes."
Even though the Dane will be the top racer for the squad in the Ardennes, the roles will be reversed with Ayuso in the Tour. However, Skjelmose argued that he "understood the decision" not to have made him team leader in the Tour de France next year, even though he admitted that he would have liked to have had that position in July as well.
"That's how it is, and I'm not going to challenge that decision. I think it was right," he said.
They gave me an explanation and they gave me a deal. They support me, so I support them."
Regarding Ayuso and his relationship with him, Skelmose was upbeat, arguing that the initial comments he'd made last year about not being told by the squad about the signing had been given excessive importance by the media.
"I think he’s a nice guy. He’s a bit of a nerd like me about equipment and optimisation," he said. "I’m happy, and I think we can mirror ourselves in each other and use each other a lot.
"We need to build a relationship, that’s for sure. To use each other, we also need to know each other’s weaknesses and strengths, and you learn that best by racing together. Being teammates is also about being more honest, which makes it easier to adapt our plan.”
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