The drought of individual victories at the Tour de France for US riders reached 100 stages on Thursday, though it wasn't for lack of effort by the six Americans working across five teams in this year's race.
The last US rider to savour victory at the Tour was Sepp Kuss five years ago. In 2021, he soloed to the win on a climbing day in Andorra la Vella on stage 15. Will Visma let him light the ignition switch to do that again, with most of the mountain stages still to come?
"We've been going full gas on every stage, so there's quite a bit of fatigue - from speed, the heat. We're doing well as a team. It's never easy trying to beat a rival like Pogačar, but we're still in the mix. The toughest stages are still to come. We'll see," Kuss told Spanish outlet Marca TV on Wednesday.
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"There are also many stages that might be better suited for a breakaway, where we could put Matteo [Jorgenson], a rider who's good in breakaways."
Jorgenson and Kuss are versatile, and either could launch team leader Jonas Vingegaard on a mountain assault, though the second-placed Dane will not escape the UAE Team Emirates-XRG radar to counter for Tadej Pogačar. So this could be an opportunity for Jorgenson, should he recover from an illness to start the second week of racing, or Kuss, who with his stage win at the Giro d'Italia in May, now has won stages in all three Grand Tours.
Recently, the US has not had big numbers at the world's largest stage race. The year Kuss won, he was just one of three US riders. In 2023, there were double that number. And this year there are six in the mix again - Kuss and Jorgenson for Visma-Lease a Bike, Quinn Simmons for Lidl-Trek, Sean Quinn for EF Education-EasyPost, Matthew Riccitello with Decathlon CMA CGM and Brandon McNulty with UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
There have been glimmers of success among the US riders to quench the appetite for fans in the first half of this year's Tour, including a stage 4 podium by reigning USPro road champion Simmons and a pair of top 10s for former USPro champion Quinn. However, the winless streak remained as the Tour headed for the preferred terrain of climbing for most of the contingency.
Granted, several of the riders have been active each day, mainly Simmons, with a breakaway skirmish to lead out teammate Mads Pedersen to the win in Foix on stage 4 and then making multiple attacks on stage 12.
"I know I can win a stage in this race, but I also know everything needs to go right for it to happen," he told Cyclingnews after the first few days of racing at the Tour with a national jersey on his shoulders.
The roles of these riders are first and foremost to support their team's GC and other classification leaders, such as Simmons for points classification leader Mads Pedersen and McNulty for race leader Pogačar.
With Pogaćar holding a firm grip on the yellow jersey for nine of the first 11 days of this Tour, look for many teams to loosen the leash on these American riders for stage wins. McNulty is quite versatile, but may just target stage 16, a compelling 26.1km stage 16 with a climb that suits his skill set.
The swell of prosperity for a pair of top 10s in the opening week could go to Quinn. He has a personal dry spell of two seasons without a victory, mainly due to recovery from a career-threatening knee injury, last winning the 2024 USPro road title. Mountains are his favourite territory, and there are plenty left for him to make a statement, especially since he is now the best-placed GC rider of the EF squad, 15th overall and 2:35 ahead of teammate Richard Carapaz, who is 18th overall.
Riccitello came in with the GC win at Tour de la Provence, and the 24-year-old rides this stage race to support French phenom Paul Seixas, now fifth on GC 5:35 behind Pogačar. The youngest of the six Americans at 24, he crashed on stage 3 but told Cyclingnews before stage 11: "I'm feeling better and better every day. I fully intend to be there to support Paul in the coming days".
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