Was GC Kuss just a three-week love affair in the heady late summer of 2023? A mythical and mystical time where everyone's favourite domestique, sweet, placid Sepp, rose above his disobeying and greedy teammates and scored a Grand Tour win everyone had hoped for, but no one really thought would ever happen. Was that it – just a few weeks of glorious fun?
The 2024 season would suggest that was indeed the case. The American’s defence of his Vuelta a España title crashed and burned before it ever really got going, the Visma-Lease a Bike finishing 14th in Madrid, more than 20 minutes adrift of Primož Roglič, his long-time teammate who was one of only two people on the entire planet who didn’t want Kuss to win the Spanish race in 2023 (the other, in case you forgot, was Jonas Vingegaard).
Go a little further back through the season and the results sheet paints a picture of a typical rider embarking on their first full season as GC rider: some good (a win at the Vuelta a Burgos the highlight), some promise by dancing around the top-10 in other races, but overall lacking consistency. That’d be alright if Kuss was in his early twenties, but he’s not – he turned 30 just this month.
The American could very easily slot back into his role, that of a super mountain domestique in the Tour de France, and relinquish the duties and pressure of being team leader, but Visma aren’t giving up on GC Kuss just yet. “We’ll definitely see him chasing general classifications in the future, but always in the function of the team,” his coach Mathieu Heijboer tells Rouleur. “Sepp functions best as being one of the guys, one of the leaders, but not the sole leader. He enjoys being the last guy for Jonas [Vingegaard], or for example on the day to Cordoba [in the Vuelta] when he controlled the stage for Wout [van Aert], that was something that gave him a lot of joy and pleasure. But he’s not a guy only wanting to support – he also wants to chase his own ambitions.”
In 2023, Jumbo-Visma (now Visma-Lease a Bike) completed the podium with Kuss as the champion, Vingegaard in second and Roglič in third (Image by ASO)
A dual-pronged approach, as was the plan at the Vuelta with Cian Uijtdebroeks, remains the direction of choice. “A two-leader strategy,” Heijboer confirms. “Or maybe a strategy where Wout could be in another leading role chasing stages. We did go into the Vuelta with both Sepp and Cian fighting for GC, but the reality is Cian didn’t have the level and Sepp as defending champion was our only GC guy after a few stages. We do think the long season of 2023 with three Grand Tours, the harmed build-up during the [Critérium du] Dauphiné and missing the Tour are the real reasons [why Kuss didn’t perform as hoped].”
The reasons. Let’s get to them. Originally, Kuss was set to be Vingegaard’s bodyguard at the Tour, but a Covid infection picked up at June’s Dauphiné ruled him out of the French race. “In general we have to say he lost a lot of training and was really harmed by the effect of the Covid infection at the Dauphiné,” Heijboer explains. “It bothered him a lot, and even in the Vuelta build-up he still had some issues with coughing and his lungs. He was vulnerable, let’s say. Before, he’s always ridden the Vuelta with the Tour in his legs, and that works for him. In hindsight, his non-ideal build-up is partly responsible for the fact he didn’t have really stable performance levels.”
Winning at Burgos in early August only papered over the cracks, Heijboer believes. “He won Burgos, yes, but it was a pretty easy stage race to be honest and the one climbing stage he won wasn’t super hard. I think San Sebastian the day after Burgos was at a different level, and you could see with different type of competition it was a little bit harder for him.”
Image by SWpix.com
The big debate surrounding Kuss’s first full season as a protected GC rider was whether or not he was ready for it: ready for the pressure; ready for the scrutiny; ready for the micro-analysis of his performances, like this one. Nice guys don’t win, goes the proverb, and though Kuss had debunked that somewhat, he was still the same nice Sepp Kuss. Maybe too nice.
“It’s a question for him,” Heijboer says when asked if the Eagle of Durango has enjoyed the season. “But Sepp has a stable personality. He hasn’t shown signs that he didn’t like it or couldn’t handle the pressure, but for sure it was a different situation for him going into the season as a Grand Tour winner with some expectation, as well as the contract renewal during the winter. Some things changed, the situation was different for him, but you’ll have to ask him if it really bothered him.
“The personality Sepp has, he’s not a robot: he didn’t win the Vuelta and go training the next day if nothing happened. Of course a lot happened to him, and he has profited from it in terms of enjoying the fact he has won a Grand Tour and that he was the king of the Vuelta last year. He recovered, and new expectations came. He dealt with that, and it has been a very, very valuable experience.” Would Visma change anything? “For sure, we maybe hoped for more results from him, but in hindsight we wouldn’t do anything different.”
With two-time Tour winner Vingegaard reportedly keen on targeting the Giro d'Italia before round five of his Tour showdown with Tadej Pogačar, it looks probable that the Vuelta will once again be on the race program of Spain’s adopted son. GC Kuss hasn’t run its course after just one year. “I’m still convinced he can do good GCs – it’s not suddenly that now things look totally different,” Heijboer insists. “We cherish this experience, learn from it, and do better.”
Cover image by SWpix.com
