After eight days in the lead of the Vuelta a España, American Sepp Kuss is still metamorphosing from a super-domestique into a Grand Tour champion but is preparing to spread his wings in a mountainous final week.
In an interview with Sporza, the 28-year-old admitted to being reluctant to take on the role as sole leader of the dominant Jumbo-Visma squad - an opportunity that was floated as a future goal after Kuss won the Tour de France stage to Andorra in 2021.
For now, Kuss is happy to be one of three very strong cards for his team to play alongside three-time Vuelta a España winner Primož Roglič and two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard.
"It's not necessary for me to have the whole team around me or feel the need to repay the efforts of all my teammates," Kuss said. "I appreciate the work they do but I'm a guy that would rather be in the shadows. Being in this team with Primož with Jonas, I can still do my thing while working a bit in the in the shadows."
Over the past two years since his Tour stage win, Kuss has largely been in those shadows, helping to usher Roglič and Vingegaard to their Grand Tour successes - including both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France this year.
Now into the second rest day of his fifth straight Grand Tour and still getting better Kuss said his performance has given him more confidence, "But it's hard to compare being a domestique to a team team leader."
Both Vingegaard and Roglič have expressed their support for Kuss but he says the team is not going to back down on the three-leader strategy.
"It's nice to see that also believe in me and are happy for me in the position that I'm in now. But they're also real competitors and they want to win as well.
"It's nice to have three of us in the position we are now but we can't put an over-emphasis on that and lose the big picture which is just winning the race with one of us in the end. So we just have to be honest with ourselves and who's feeling the best, or who has the ability to finish it off in the end."
The final week of the Vuelta a España will undoubtedly reveal the best rider, with the summit finish on the Angliru on Wednesday. But that's not the stage that concerns Kuss the most. After all, he went up the same climb in the 2020 Vuelta side-by-side with Roglič.
"I love the climbs in Cantabria and Asturias - they're my kind of climbs, the steep climbs that you see in the Vuelta. I'm feeling really good and looking forward to this week."
The last time Kuss raced on the Angliru, he had "super good legs" and "was really, really feeling good on the climb and enjoying it as much as possible.
"Luckily I was there to to help Primož out because at that point in the race, the GC was really close between him and [Richard] Carapaz so I'm at least going in this year with with good memories. But it's such a hard climb that you really need to have a good day there to make a difference."
He also thinks Thursday's stage 18 with the dual ascents of the Puerto de la Cruz de Linares a sting on the tail.
"Stage 18 is a really tricky stage with two times over the same climb, and it's quite close between each time - so if there are attacks from a ways out, then that can complicate things. Then, of course, stage 20 is a really long stage it looks like like a classic almost, with a bunch of short climbs. And those stages are always harder to harder to control and more unpredictable. So I think those are the trickiest stages and other than that it just comes down to if you have the legs or not."
If Kuss has the legs, he could well become the first American Grand Tour winner in a decade since Chris Horner's Vuelta win. He says he's feeling confident.
"I think this year and especially this race has been a big change for me because I've just had more and more confidence in myself. I went into the Giro and wasn't sure how I would be because I'd never done the Giro at a high level before and I wasn't fully prepared to do it. But then when I got there I thought 'Oh, I'm in really good shape' and already there, mentally, I knew I was going to be good.
"Then in the tour, it was a whole 'nother step up - I also had the confidence in myself that I could be with the best guys and then, the same for this race, especially now being in the leader's jersey. I've been able to do more than I would have thought beforehand. And I think that's all just the mental game as well as the physical.
"The Vuelta is really special because I think it's the race that I identify the most with. It was my first Grand Tour and I have more of a special connection with it than a lot of other races. For me, it's nice to be in this position and feel the affection from the people and that gives me a lot of motivation."
