Sepp Kuss is not the place he was a yr in the past on the Vuelta a España however then this is not final yr’s Vuelta a España. This has been a wierd form of a race, the place merely staying within the hunt by an unruly opening week typically felt like half the battle.
There have been fluctuating fortunes for almost all of the contenders for last victory, together with Ben O’Connor, the person at present virtually 4 minutes clear atop the general standings. A number of have fallen by the wayside altogether, too, together with João Almeida, who withdrew with COVID-19, and Antonio Tiberi, pressured out by warmth stroke.
Amid that maelstrom, Kuss’ race has ebbed and flowed in its personal manner. He conceded floor on the primary summit end at Pico Villuercas however then loved a powerful cameo in help of teammate Wout van Aert in Cordoba. A crash earlier than the ultimate climb to Cazorla on stage 8 may have ruined his Vuelta, however he restricted his losses as greatest he may.
Kuss bled a little bit extra time in Granada on stage 9, however he appeared snug within the crimson jersey group when the race resumed in Galicia on Tuesday after the lengthy, lengthy switch north. On a day when his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Wout van Aert claimed stage honours from the break, Kuss reached Baiona safely with the remainder of the rostrum contenders.
Because the Vuelta approaches its midpoint, Kuss lies 14th total, 8:16 down on O’Connor and 4:23 behind his outdated teammate Primož Roglič. Most observers would view the defending champion’s glass as half-empty. Kuss, nonetheless, would possibly argue that an important factor at this level is just nonetheless to be clutching a glass in any respect.
“If I simply look to myself, I used to be fairly proud of the primary week,” Kuss mentioned in Ponteareas forward of stage 10. “I used to be constant all the times. I by no means had that additional bit to actually be there with the perfect guys, however I by no means had a foul, unhealthy day both. On stage 9, I did not have the perfect feeling, however I used to be completely happy and stunned that I made it by like I did. It is nonetheless one thing to construct on.”
It is nonetheless unclear, nonetheless, exactly what Kuss can assemble from his Vuelta over the remaining eleven levels. After COVID-19 dominated him out of the Tour de France, Kuss warmed up for this race with victory on the Vuelta a Burgos, however he has not fairly replicated that kind in the principle occasion, the place he set out as Visma’s outright chief after his uneasy coexistence with Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard a yr in the past.
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The recurring motif of this Vuelta, nonetheless, has been riders clawing their manner again into the reckoning with long-range assaults. After O’Connor soloed into the maillot rojo in Yunquera, each Adam Yates and Richard Carapaz firmly re-entered the GC battle on the street to Granada on Sunday. Kuss, who laid the foundations of his 2023 Vuelta victory along with his personal effort from a distance at Javalambre, will certainly hunt down an analogous alternative within the days forward.
“Loads of it’s nearly seeing what occurs within the second – and in addition having the legs,” Kuss mentioned. “As a result of should you go for it and commit, then it’s important to have actually good legs to do it.
“I simply need to see if there are alternatives that come up both to make up a while or attempt to win a stage. To this point, this Vuelta has been fairly loopy virtually each different day. So I am simply on the lookout for these days and seeing what I could make out of it.”
Not the Tour
The ecosystem of this Vuelta seems to lend itself to GC males attempting their luck from a distance. The absence of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard has made this race far much less of a closed store than the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, whereas O’Connor’s hefty total lead implies that Decathlon-AG2R would possibly enable attackers a major diploma of latitude.
“It is positively not just like the Tour, the place you have got each single workforce with their greatest riders. It is nonetheless a very proficient and deep discipline however there are fewer dominant groups I’d say, and that makes the racing in my view a bit extra attention-grabbing,” mentioned Kuss. “And Decathlon know they’ve a big hole over the opposite favourites, so it is much less on them to manage it.”
Even so, Decathlon had been diligent in scanning the early assaults on stage 10 for potential threats, and it took a ferocious opening hour of racing earlier than Van Aert and firm finally managed to amass a profitable lead. For many of the peloton, Kuss included, the opening ascent of the Alto de Fonfría became an ordeal.
“The primary climb was laborious, I used to be struggling a bit, however I knew I simply needed to blow out the cobwebs a bit after which I would really feel extra within the rhythm,” mentioned Kuss.
Earlier than the stage, Kuss had warned that the succession of climbs within the finale may provoke frissons among the many GC. As a substitute, there was a truce of types, with solely EF Schooling-EasyPost making a quick try to interrupt up the race on the ultimate ascent of Alto de Mougás.
“We did an virtually equivalent last in 2021, so if a workforce had taken it up on the third to final climb, there would in all probability have been some gaps,” Kuss mentioned. “However till midway up the final climb, it was a reasonably managed tempo.”
With the general contenders content material to succeed in Baiona collectively, the day as a substitute belonged to Kuss’ teammate Van Aert, who collected his third stage win of the race and cemented his lead atop the factors standings. “With Wout right here, he at all times makes the workforce higher,” Kuss mentioned. “With out him, it could be certain for a special dynamic. You at all times need him to be right here.”
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