Durangoan Sepp Kuss helped Primoz Roglic win the Giro d’Italia in May. Kuss then helped Jonas Vingegaard win the Tour de France in June.
With the third cycling Grand Tour of the season, the Vuelta a España in Barcelona, Spain, starting Saturday, Kuss, Roglic and Vingegaard will all clip in for Jumbo-Visma and chase cycling’s grand tour trilogy.
No team has ever won all three grand tours in the same season, but Jumbo-Visma will start two leaders to go after another win in the general classification.
“It is an ambitious goal that we dare to declare and for which we can field a very versatile and strong eight-man squad in Spain,” said Jumbo-Visma sports director Marc Reef. “We are ready for anything with this team, and I look forward to starting in Barcelona with these riders.”
Wilco Kelderman, Dylan Van Baarle, Attila Valter, Robert Gesink and Jan Tratnik are also on the team’s preliminary start list.
Kuss and Kelderman will support the leaders on the climbs. It will be Kuss' third grand tour of the season, while Kelderman rode the Tour de France.
“Both were very important during the Giro and the Tour,” Reef said. “We followed them up well after the Tour. Kuss crashed in the final of the Tour de France, but he recovered quicker than expected. After a period of rest, both Kuss and Kelderman have been able to resume training, and we think they are ready. Their role will be similar to their role in the Tour.”
Van Baarle is also doing the Tour-Vuelta double, while Valter, Tratnik, Gesink and Roglic, were in full preparation for the Vuelta a España while the Tour de France was still going on.
Jumbo-Visma also had two leaders for the 2022 Tour de France. Roglic had to withdraw following a crash, but Vingegaard went on to win the general classification.
“Vingegaard and Roglic will start the race both as our leaders,” Reef said. “Roglic had an excellent preparation with a rest after the Giro and then altitude training followed by the Tour of Burgos. Vingegaard took a break after winning the Tour but then started training again, and the signals we got from him are also very good. The big goal is for one of them to reach Madrid in the red jersey.”
Vingegaard’s biggest competition from the Tour, Tadej Pogacar, is not on the start list for UAE Team Emirates.
Some of the top competitors include defending champion Remco Evenpoel, as well as Joao Almeida, Enric Mas, Nikel Landa, Geraint Thomas and Filippo Ganna.
Quinn Simmons of Durango, who withdrew from the Tour de France after crashing, won’t race for Lidl-Trek in the Vuelta. Lidl-Trek’s start list doesn’t include the Tour de France’s king of the mountain, Giulio Ciccone, or Mads Pedersen. Edward Theuns is the team’s highest ranked rider in the WorldTour rankings at No 34. Kuss is ranked No. 35.
Without Simmons, Kuss will be one of four Americans racing in the Vuelta. Sean Quinn of EF Education-EasyPost, Larry Warbasse of AG2R Citroen and Joe Dombrowski of Astana Qazaqstan will also represent the USA.
The 21-stage race starts Saturday with a 14.8-kilometer team time trial. The 78th edition of the Vuelta will have also four flat stages, six hilly stages, seven mountain stages and one individual time trial, totaling 3,154 kilometers (1,959 miles). It will conclude Sept. 17 in Madrid.
colivas@durangoherald.com
