It’s been five years since Sepp Kuss last led a stage race, but as the Jumbo-Visma racer continues to reign supreme at the Vuelta a España, he says that his memories of conquering the 2018 Tour of Utah are still helping him in Spain.
“I still remember it [Utah] a little bit,” Kuss told reporters after a largely straightforward defence of his overall lead on the Vuelta’s stage 11 summit finish at Laguna Negra de Vinuesa.
“That was also a moment when I knew I was in really good shape, and that gave me the confidence to go for the lead.
"Now it's a bit different, and it's on a much bigger scale, but I've still got that confidence, and I don't have those doubts because I feel so motivated.”
Back in 2018, Kuss moved into the lead in the town of Payson in the now-defunct Tour of Utah with a spectacular solo 50-kilometre break, ousting Tejay Van Garderen from the top spot overall. His LottoNL-Jumbo teammate at the time, Neilson Powless, underlined the team’s power by claiming second on the stage.
After that first pro triumph of his career, the then-rookie WorldTour pro Kuss told Cyclingnews that the stage victory was the most important achievement regardless of what happened in the rest of the race, where he subsequently dominated with two more wins en route to outright victory four days later in Park City. The four wins he secured in that week still constitute half of his total palmares.
Fast forward five years, and Kuss is now repeatedly asked if he thinks he can now score victory number nine of his career by taking the leader's red jersey all the way to Madrid. The key high mountain stages are still to come, but just like in Utah, Kuss says his confidence in his ability to defend the lead is growing.
"You always have to believe,” he says. "It's pretty simple, I just give my best and enjoy every day I've got the leader's jersey.”
One key foundation of Kuss holding the lead was his above-expectations time trial in Valladolid, and the American said he did notice the after-effects of going far deeper than usual in a chrono on the following stage.
“For me, it was a big effort, but I was very happy after it. I did feel it, but after the first part of the stage, I was doing ok.
“The race was not so bad today; everybody wanted to keep going at a good pace right through to the end, but I can't complain.
"There were lots of big roads early on, so it took a while for the right break to go, and there was a kind of annoying win most of the day, so it wasn't easy. But it's all relative."
Although there was a foretaste of the mountains to come at Laguna Negra and the Pyrenees are fast looming on the horizon, Kuss and the rest of the Vuelta peloton have one last flat day to face across the plains of Aragon to Zaragoza.
“So long as the wind doesn't blow too hard, it should be an ok day," Kuss concluded, with a reminder that on such open terrain, there's always the risk of echelons. But for now, at least for Kuss, the Vuelta could hardly be going any better.
