The bare facts will record how American Sepp Kuss won
the 2023 Vuelta a Espana leading Jumbo-Visma to a historic triumph in being the
first team to win all three Grand Tours in one year.
And that Kuss rode all three! The team topped it off by taking the top three positions overall in
Spain.
Sepp Kuss, winner of the 2023 Vuelta a Espana
The story gets even better when we take into
account the intrigue concerning what appeared to be devious plotting to deny
Kuss that victory when both Roglic and Vingegaard, turning their pedals anger,
attempted to wrest the red jersey from him.
It was a story which rocked the sport in the final
week before it all came good in the end.
For wasn’t that the most magical moment when Jumbo
– Visma’s Sepp Kuss, the American super domestique, upset the hierarchy – Jonas
Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic - to emerge
as the new star of the decade.
His meritorious victory in the Vuelta in Madrid was
achieved despite their best efforts to oust him!
What a controversy, as he put their noses out of
joint, the two men he has faithfully always served. For he had helped Denmark’s
Vingegaard to win of the Tour de France in July, a month after helped Slovenia’s
Roglic take the Giro in May.
What an outrage then when this pair attacked Kuss
when leading them in Spain, trying in vain to take the red jersey off him in
the closing kilometers over two successive days including the toughest of mountain
stages in the final week.
Sepp Kuss in the red jersey of race leader.
So what was going on in the private confines of the
Jumbo team bus? Where was the show of solidarity to back their new star?
Clearly, the original Jumbo plan was to have either
Vingegaard or Roglic go for top overall honours. As proven Grand Tour winners
that’s what was expected of them. And Kuss was to be the mainstay, helping pave
the way, as he had done so often in the past.
So perhaps when Kuss surprised and took the overall
lead on stage 8, they saw him as “caretaker” of the jersey. They expected him, the
“lessor” rider, to slip back in due course leaving the gate open for the “top”
guys later in the race.
But what if he didn’t fall back. What if he began
to look like a winner himself? Which is
exactly what happened. Had they even
considered a change to the script?
We all knew that Kuss had it in him to try. And
this year my gut feeling was that he had it in him to win.
We have
watched him pace those two guys for kilometer after kilometer in the past, burning
himself out before peeling off as they launched their efforts.
Was there a team discussion about the possibility
that one day he might just be better than those two? And if this should happen would
the team change strategy and support him.
It doesn’t look like it. More like the team was
going to leave the riders to sort it themselves, man on man, as Roglic said.
Whatever, clearly Vingegaard and Roglic held to the
belief that the race was theirs to fight for, even as Kuss looked more and more
the champion with a substantial margin over them both and worth defending.
The pair of them clearly had invested a lot of
mental energy as well as specific training to carry out the team’s wishes, for
one of them to take the race. We must not overlook that.
So focused were they on their quest, they failed to
see, or didn’t want to see, that the world had changed around them.
And so they went about their business, failed to recognize
that the time was right to repay Kuss for his years of service – including in
both the Giro and Le Tour this year, where he worked hard as a pace setter on
the steep slopes, chasing down attacks
from others, so that they didn’t wear themselves out, perhaps weaken themselves
before they chose the moment to push on themselves.
But that counted for nothing. To hell with all
that.
And so they attacked this usurper who had had the
temerity to find himself ahead of them on general classification.
They would put him in his rightful place. He’s their domestique, right. Hang him out to
dry, set the GC to rights.
Vingegaard tried first on hilly stage 16 to Bejes, when
he attacked with just under 5 kilometers to go, leaving Kuss on steep slopes
averaging 9 per cent for the last 4.7 kilometers and he took a comfortable win.
It was suggested that Kuss had shown the first signs of weakness that day, but
if he did, it soon passed and he finished in 10th place, four
seconds behind Roglic. But Vingegaard had cut Kuss’s advantage to 29 seconds.
Then on stage 17 – Kuss’s 29th birthday -
both Vingegaard and Roglic attacked one after the other and distanced Kuss once
again.
They cut loose in the final kilometers of the monstrous
climb of the Angliru to finish at the top where Roglic outsprinted Vingegaard
to win. It’s described as 13 kilometers of hell, with an average gradient of 14 per cent, but with slopes of 20 per
cent for good measure!
Vingegaard closed the gap to Kuss to only eight
seconds and leapfrogged to second overall ahead of Roglic now third overall, who
cut his deficit on Kuss to 1 minutes 8 seconds.
But Kuss wasn’t finished, taking third place on the
stage – a Jumbo-Visma 1, 2,3. And he
kept the red jersey.
However, the attacks by his two teammates caused
howls of
outrage across social media platforms and the press
took Vingegaard and Roglic apart.
It seemed to us that so inflated were their egos
they couldn’t bring themselves to return the favour. So wired were they in
their desire to win again they simply jumped ship, scarpered up the road, left
him behind. I wonder what Kuss thought at the moment?
As it was they couldn’t take back enough time to
dislodge him.
And they reckoned without the reaction of cycling
fans across the world and the press who turned on them with a vengeance to
lambast their acts of selfishness.
We can only wonder what words the management had
for them that night. Whatever they said, clearly they told the pair of them
that Kuss was now the protected rider that they must fall in line behind him.
It appeared to do the trick and the two rogues did as
told, made sure Kuss reached Madrid in Red.
And they did that, although Roglic’s frozen smiles
told you all you needed to know about how he felt about it. Vingegaard did
genuinely look more relaxed.
History will recall when the new star first rose to
the top. It was on stage eight won by Roglic that Kuss, the team's best placed rider overall, took 7th place at 2sec, and rose to the top of the overall classification. He took the famous red jersey which would be his for the rest of race.
At that point, Kuss led the race by 43 seconds from Soler and
by one minute from Martinez in third. Roglic was 7th overall at 2-38
and Vingegaard 8th at 2-42.
There you have the new pecking order for
Jumbo-Visma – or not!
The American had finally spread his wings as we all
knew he could, and he would hold the lead for the rest of the Spanish race even
as Vingegaard and Roglic closed up, moved up to second and third overall
respectively.
Kuss had stood firm under attack from his very own
teammates and clearly showed he had the class to win a Grand Tour.
So it was that the 29-year-old took the top step of
the podium in Madrid on Sunday evening, flanked by Vingegaard in second place
and Roglic in third.
It was, in the end, a truly magnificent victory for Kuss and the Jumbo Visma team. Hail King Sepp.
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