The fact that Jumbo-Visma has the red jersey after the first rest day in the Vuelta is not a bolt from the blue. The fact that Sepp Kuss is in pole position is surprising. To where does heaven reach for the graceful angel-faced climber?
Was it a deliberate tactical move by Team Jumbo – Visma or was Sepp Kuss just himself?
Kiss(s)hands and high fives left and right: last Thursday he took ample time to celebrate his victory in Javalambre.
In the final settlement, Kuss was therefore 8 seconds short of taking over the red jersey from Remco Evenepoel, a gift that choirboy Lenny Martinez accepted with gratitude.
On Saturday, Kuss was still shining in the red after Xorret de Cati and he still holds that lead at the start of the time trial this afternoon.
Kuss as leader in the general classification, these are images that his ardent supporters have been waiting for for some time.
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By analogy with Free Landa, GC Kuss (GC stands for General Classification) was launched a few years ago and that movement is now completely red hot.
Free Landa saw the light of day in the 2017 Tour. Mikel Landa was then Chris Froome’s foreman and seemed to be able to transcend that role, but the Spanish mountain goat was trapped in Sky’s team play.
There is not (yet) a rap song like Landa, but on X (ex-Twitter) GC Kuss is an animated account.
The followers do everything they can to “free” Kuss and want to maneuver him into a leader’s role. Because according to them, he has not yet reached his ceiling.
Even Jumbo-Visma has now jumped on the fun train and stimulated with a transformation film. Grit to the mill of the supporters of Kuss, who, in their own words, also had to get used to his facelift. And he’s not alone.
“I saw my wife (Spanish rider Noémi Ferré) this morning and she said she didn’t even recognize me with those new red colors,” Kuss said on Sunday afternoon just before his first day as leader in a grand tour.
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“Not the spirit of a candidate overall winner”
Cycling fans and analysts were convinced that that day as GC leader would one day come, although the affable Kuss has always blocked that expectation.
As a master servant, the American enigma is, as it were, hidden in everything the body of a classification man desires. That camouflage jacket fits him like a glove.
Why he never took his chance as numero uno? “I don’t have the spirit of a candidate overall winner of a grand tour,” Kuss himself testified a while ago.
“I work hard, but you also have to make a lot of small sacrifices for that role. That love of detail counts, every day. That eats up energy, on and off the bike. For some it comes naturally, for me it doesn’t. Or not yet .”
Kuss likes to swear off the stress. “When you ride for a classification, you have so much to lose. Every day, every moment. The more I think about what I can lose, the harder it gets,” he told AD last Tour.
When you’re riding for a leaderboard, you have so much to lose. The more I think about what I can lose, the harder it gets.
Sep kiss
Selfless is the character trait that fits cool guy Sepp Kuss like a glove. He grew up in Durango, a small town in the Colorado mountains.
Following the example of his parents, he initially focused on winter sports such as cross-country skiing and downhill skiing, although ice hockey was actually his great love. Only the frail Kuss didn’t have his gabarit with him.
In its home base, mountain bike is king on two wheels, much more than road bike. And those toys also quickly tempted Kuss.
Kuss took his first steps at Rally Cycling and was detected in 2018 by LottoNL-Jumbo, the predecessor of the current Jumbo-Visma.
The switch from the US to Europe is not easy for every professional athlete, but Kuss was jumping for it himself. “I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and discover other cultures and new insights.”
Glue Guy Sepp Kuss: “He Digests A Spartan Regime Badly”
He has definitely made that journey of discovery in recent years. And in this Vuelta he detects a facet that he – consciously? – has or had allowed to ripen in the twilight zone.
Is the always cheerful Sepp Kuss hiding a full-fledged leader? Burning ambition is one part of the answer, and that fire is not always a blowtorch.
Entertainment and fun have always dominated his mindset, much more than competition or winning. A legacy of Colorado MTB DNA.
That fun factor can therefore be a possible internal enemy. “Group success also makes him happy”, his mentor Chad Cheeney parried several times in the recent past.
“Sepp is the “glue guy”. Not the superstar, but the crucial link in the background. Call him the glue within a group. He thinks of the atmosphere, of a joke to defuse things. He makes the wheel turn. “
It seems a bit at odds with the pillars and winner’s mentality of Jumbo-Visma, but the top team also knows well enough how to mold their American pearl.
“He digests a spartan regime mentally badly”, head of performance Mathieu Heijboer recently clarified in De Tijd.
“So we are looking for a program for him that makes him competitive without threatening to go under psychologically.”
Sepp is the “glue guy”. Not the superstar, but the crucial link in the background. Call him the glue within a group.
mentor Chad Cheeney
The big flaw: his flawed time trial
Incognito. So he operates best from the lee. The balancing act between that mental health and the physical limits can eventually result in a big bang.
Whether that is possible in this Vuelta is still the question. Kuss, 28 years old and actually a late bloomer, is already working on his 3rd big round this year.
In the Giro he finished 14th as master servant of Primoz Roglic, in the Tour he was the guardian angel of Jonas Vingegaard. Despite a serious fall in the penultimate stage, Kuss still finished 12th in Paris.
There is no problem in Spain for the time being. With his playful coup de pédale, Kuss flutters through the Spanish mountains, although his armor showed small cracks last weekend.
And today – starting at 5.02 pm – the real litmus test follows in Valladolid. A potential grand tour winner cannot afford gaps.
His time trial is a major defect. “Sepp just doesn’t have the flexibility for it and will never be in a comfortable aerodynamic position on his time trial bike,” said his mom.
Sepp Kuss crashed heavily in the penultimate stage of the Tour.
Will the rock star stand up soon?
Remco Evenepoel is convinced that he can “give Kuss 2 minutes” in the time trial of 25.8 kilometers today.
In the opening time trial of the Giro (19.6 km) Kuss finished 2’09” from winner Evenepoel, in Cesena (35 km) he gave up 4’21” on day 9 in the final tour de force of his Belgian competitor.
These are differences that tell a lot about the proportions, although Kuss will approach this time trial in a completely different way for the first time. As a leader and as an extra pawn on the Dutch chessboard.
“In everyone there is a rock star somewhere,” his mentor declared in tempore non suspecto. “If you work with Sepp in the right way, it can pay off sooner or later.”
We’ll find out tonight how juicy those fruits already are. And then the Vuelta can really begin.
Vuelta a España class
Back to Spain
stage date start – finish type stage total winner leader
1
08/26Barcelona – Barcelona
14,8 km
Lorenzo Milesi
2
08/27 Mataró – Barcelona
172 km
Andrew Small
3
28/08 Súria – Arinsal
158,5 km
Remco Evenepoel
4
29/08Andorra la Vella – Tarragona
184,6 km
Remco Evenepoel
5
30/08 Morella – Borriana
186,2 km
Remco Evenepoel
6
31/08La Vall d’Uixó – Pico del Buitre
179,4 km
Lenny Martinez
7
01/09Utiel – Oliva
200,8 km
Lenny Martinez
8
02/09Dénia – Xorret de Catí
165 km
Sep kiss
9
09/03 Cartagena – Alto Caravaca de la Cruz
184,5 km
Blacksmith Kussrustdag 04/09
10
05/09Valladolid – Valladolid
25,8 km
11
09/06 Lerma – The Black Lagoon of Vinuesa
163,2 km
12
07/09Olvega – Zaragoza
150,6 km
13
08/09Formigal – Col du Tourmalet
134,7 km
14
09/09Sauveterre-de-Béarn – Puerto de Belagua
156,2 km
15
10/09 Pamplona – Lekunberri
158,3 km
rest day 11/09
16
09/12 Liencres – Bejes
120,1 km
17
13/09Ribadesella – Alto de l’Angliru
124,4 km
18
09/14 Pola de Allande – Puerto de La Cruz de Linares
178,9 km
19
15/09La Bañeza – Íscar
177,1 km
20
16/09Manzanares el Real – Guadarrama
207,8 km
21
17/09Madrid – Madrid
101,1 km
2023-09-05 05:10:07
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