Vuelta a España leader Sepp Kuss has heaped praise on former race contender Remco Evenepoel for how the Belgian racer regained enough momentum to go on a colossal long-distance mountain attack on Saturday and clinch a spectacular solo stage 14 win.
Kuss himself looked to be in good shape throughout the second key Pyrenean stage, with only a brief wobble on the ultra-difficult Larrau when Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) launched multiple attacks in the one moment where the tension briefly spiked.
“Stages where the second last climb are the hardest are sometimes the most challenging, and today was a good day for ambushes,” Kuss told reporters afterwards.
“The Larrau is the kind of climb that’s tough enough to make some big attacks if somebody has a problem. But we were able to track the other guys without any real problems.”
After Ayuso’s mini-rebellion had been quelled by the Jumbo-Visma racers, the remainder of the stage passed off uneventfully for Kuss, with no further attacks materialising all the way to the summit finish of the Puerto de Belagua.
But the American said that he was able to draw on his considerable experience working for other top riders to help him learn how to best defend the jersey on stages like Saturday’s trek through the French Pyrenees and back into Spain.
“I’ve been lucky to be in good or winning teams that take responsibility, knowing those critical moments when you have to be on top of it, or others where you can save energy. Being around the best riders in the world and seeing how they approach this is very important for me.”
At the same time, Kuss was able to witness another important lesson on Saturday - how a champion like Evenepoel was able to turn the tables on a brutal defeat to claim a major stage victory, all in the space of 24 hours. The fact that he was under a microscopic level of constant media scrutiny in Belgium only made that turnaround even more remarkable, he said, given the pressure that kind of attention brought with it.
“I wasn’t surprised, I knew he would want to bounce back, but what he did is really impressive,” Kuss said. “I’m very happy for him because I imagine in it’s not having those kinds of setbacks with how the media is in Belgium. It’s a tricky situation, so I think he can be happy with that stage victory.”
The Vuelta is now leaving the Pyrenees behind, and Kuss remains comfortably in control. But one more tricky stage, through the hills of Navarre in northwest Spain, remains before the second rest day on Monday.
“It’s a classic Vuelta semi-breakaway stage,” Kuss said. “We don’t know if [Kaden] Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck and double stage winner of bunch sprints - Ed.] can survive the climbs. But there will be lots of attacking for the break to form, and then we’ll see how it looks after that.”
