I often draw criticism when I negatively comment on the tactics of those great champions who belong to the elite club of extraterrestrials in this generation of cyclists, but the 2025 Amstel Gold Race was the perfect summary of everything that can go wrong during a race, even if it’s (almost) always compensated by the incredible performances of these phenomena.
Except when a very good rider — actually, a real champion — even without belonging to the club of extraterrestrials, manages to stay in the wheels and is smart enough to play all his cards perfectly, just like Skjelmose did.
Champion, because you need to have a lot of fuel in the tank to hold Evenepoel’s wheel. And maybe he really was at his limit, or maybe he was bluffing a little — either way, the chase after Pogacar fell about 80% on the Olympic champion’s shoulders, while Skjelmose collaborated just enough to convince Evenepoel to keep him along.
Evenepoel, as usual, kept pulling, convinced he could beat anyone, which is very beautiful to watch and very rewarding for the spectators. Generosity delights the audience, even if it’s not always the best for strategy.
Tactically awful, however, was his attack at the exact moment Pogacar was caught. That’s a move you make when you catch a rider who’s cooked after a long solo breakaway, not against a world champion who, despite being reeled in, is still fighting for the win. Thinking you could drop Pogacar from your wheel like that was unrealistic.
The only real outcome was to irritate his rival — and if Pogacar had decided not to pull a single meter to the finish, it would have been entirely understandable.
In fact, on the Cauberg, Pogacar stops pulling. At that point, Evenepoel should have stopped too, even risking getting caught by the chasing group, but he didn’t: losing to one or ten riders doesn’t make much difference at this level. Still, Evenepoel didn’t have the nerve to tell Pogacar that without cooperation, he would stop as well.
And here Skjelmose made a move that, in my eyes, crowned him as a tactical genius: he moved to the front and took two short pulls, in a section where drafting or leading cost basically the same effort because of the steep gradient, calming the nerves of the two extraterrestrials and preventing any attacks that could have harmed him.
An applause-worthy move, because those two short pulls effectively brought the trio all the way to the sprint with minimal energy expenditure — exactly where Skjelmose wanted to be.
The Amstel finish straight is one that I personally hated as a rider because it’s slightly downhill.
It favors those who can unleash a burst in the final moment, while it’s really tough for anyone launching a long sprint, like Evenepoel — and that’s exactly how it played out.
Maybe on this kind of finish he had no real alternative, but he definitely didn’t play his cards in the best possible way.
Pogacar, for his part, seemed slightly less brilliant compared to the Tour of Flanders — as much as an extraterrestrial like him can seem “off” — and chose not to take unnecessary risks: he realized he needed to race smartly because today he didn’t have that overwhelming margin to pull off crazy moves and still win.
But it was Skjelmose who used his head better than anyone: perhaps underestimated by his breakaway companions, he was quietly crafting a perfect strategy, and with great skill, he managed to put his wheel ahead of the usual extraterrestrials.
