The Vuelta a España is a fertile ground for surprises. Just look at the recent examples of Horner, winner in 2013 at the age of 40, Froome in 2011, whose best result until then was 33rd at the Giro, or the flashy emergence of a beardless Pogacar, third in 2019 to the presentation in society. Sepp Kuss is no stranger. And yet, its presence at the top of the ranking is surprising.
The American, outstanding climber, is contesting his twelfth Grand Tour and tomorrow, the day of the Angliru, he will be 29 years old, until recently considered the age of maturity for a cyclist. Kuss, listed as a luxury gregarious, is present in all the successes of the Jumbo-Visma. But he has never fought for an important general. And, despite everything, he is six days away from winning the Vuelta.
In reality, he is three days away from becoming its virtual champion. The great challenge of the one from Durango (Colorado) is summed up in the next stages in Asturias, with three consecutive finals with a high finish. If the runner wears the red jersey at the start of La Bañeza on Friday, he will have the race almost in his pocket.
The two biggest threats to Kuss are precisely the teammates, the head theorists, the Vingegaard-Roglic couple with whom the Dutch team presented itself at the start of Barcelona to conquer the Vuelta, as they already did in 2023 with the Tour and the Giro . They are first, second and third. They will hardly attack him in the Sierra de Guadarrama.
"He has done them too many favors", observes Miguel Indurain, who believes that the bosses will respect the great opportunity of the gregarious, without using the galleons in the corridors to unseat him on the road. The stage in which Vingegaard had the most time left was that of Tormalet. The Dane attacked on the last climb and had almost a minute lead. The final part, the American accelerated on the right foot and left the distance in half: 30 seconds. Roglic, on the mountain, has only 12 seconds left in Arinsal and 2 in Xorret de Catí. "Because of the way he managed the final stages, he is the strongest of the Jumbos", intervenes Juan Ayuso, ranked fourth.
Kuss is not Walkowiak, who won the 1956 Tour thanks to a barrel breakaway, nor is he a sufferer who won the 1990 Vuelta as part of a Seur that was light years away from the potential of the current Jumbo. The American threw himself into the fray at Javalambre, where he won by almost three minutes over all the favourites. After the time trial of Valladolid, keep the options intact.
In Kuss's favor is the fact that the mountain is his territory. In the Tour he did not finish in the top ten overall because on the penultimate day he fell together with Carlos Rodríguez – he still wears bandages on his face –, he lost his understanding of the stage and ended up losing 20 minutes. He finished very strongly at the Giro last week: fifth in Bondone, sixth in Lussari and twelfth in Tres Cims de Lavaredo. The big doubt is whether the pressure will weigh on him in the case of a distant attack by Ayuso or Mas, who must move to attack the podium, or whether he will be affected by fatigue from having already run the Corsa Rosa and the french round
For now, it's quiet. "I didn't get nervous any day in the Pyrenees. Every day I have had good legs and better ones”. Nice and good guy, he doesn't care. "I feel very confident and I hope it can continue like this. We have the top three positions and we can play with that. Among us, the strongest must win", he insists. But he is not afraid of anything. Not even Angliru and its terrible cramps. He already climbed them in 2020..., and was sixth, tied with Roglic. "Angliru is one of my favorite climbs. It is very steep and hard, but I like ports like this", he says. The road will decide.
