Remco Evenepoel wins Amstel Gold in decisive fashion.
No beer for Mattias Skjelmose who fails in his bid to repeat his victory last season.
Onto the final ascent of the Cauberg, the defining climb of the race at 5.8% and 1200 meters in length. Hot-diggity.
It’s mano-a-mano is a loose repeat of the 2025 Amstel Gold race. There, it was Mattias Skjelmose taking the victory and Remo Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) settling for third.
Not the plan for Evenpoel in 2026. And on the other side, the Lidl-Trek leader is hoping for a repeat, deja vu all over again. You get a number 1 on the back of your jersey and you hate to give it up.
They’re clearly the two strongest riders in a Pogacar-Van der Poel- free edition of the one day beer run that’s been run since 1966.
They’d already dropped the third guy, the pretender, Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) the last time up the Cauberg. It was a great ride while it lasted, mon gars.
It’s now down to first or second with no chasers or peloton close enough to throw in a scare or last kilometer, heartbreak catch.
The two look evenly matched as they swap pulls, zipping along the green farmlands in the Limburg region of the Netherlands.
Evenepoel shows his perfect time trial form, always seated, as he drives the pedals. Skjelmose alternates, popping up out the saddle to match the Belgian’s speed, then settling back into his rhythm. A Jack-in-the-box routine.
The kilometers tick down.
At twenty K, Gregoire still soldiers on, ten seconds back but making no headway. He’s in no man’s land. He can see them up ahead but simply doesn’t have the wattage to close the final gap.
At ten K, the Frenchman has fallen 48 seconds behind, with a chase group 10 seconds further back and ready to sweep him up.
Now it’s the final haul up the Cauberg with just over two kilometers to the finish in Valkenburg. And there it is, the first sign of weakness, a betrayal of exhaustion. There’s a grimace on the face of Skjelmose.
Oh, he’s still there — Evenepoel can’t drop him — but Skjelmose is showing his legs are not primed for victory. Another grimace, fighting to hang on. The Dane is dying.
The sprint felt like a repeat of Wout van Aert versus Tadej Pagacar on the velodrome in Paris-Roubaix last week. Skjelmose gave it a go, perhaps more for pride than anything else.
Evenpoel hits the finish line in total control, the result never in doubt once he jumped. A burst that erased the disappointment of 3rd place in 2025. It also assured him of all the free Amstel beer he could chug.