Sepp Kuss is red-hot in Spain.
The 26-year-old professional road cyclist from Durango backed up his polka dot jersey winning ride Tuesday during the opening stage of the 2020 Vuelta a España with two more top-10 stage results Wednesday and Thursday.
Racing in his third career Spanish Vuelta, Kuss has moved into sixth place overall in the last of the three International Cycling Union (UCI) Grand Tour races.
More impressive, Kuss has done it while he has served as a support rider for Team Jumbo-Visma leader Primož Roglic, the defending race champion who sits in first place after three of 18 stages.
Roglic, a 30-year-old Slovenian who was second at this year’s Tour de France with Kuss starring in his support role, has backed up his Stage 1 victory with a pair of second-place finishes to maintain a five-second lead ahead of Ireland’s Dan Martin, a member of the Israel Start-Up Nation team.
Martin won the 103-mile third stage on Thursday in 4 hours, 27 minutes, 49 seconds to edge top contenders Roglic and Carapaz in a sprint to the line. It was the third consecutive day of burly climbing with the road going endlessly uphill with a summit finish atop La Laguna Negra de Vinuesa, a Category 1 climb.
Kuss attacked twice in the final mile of the race. Each time, he was countered and unable to break away. Martin had the legs to win the stage, while Roglic was comfortably second.
“It was a great day for us,” Roglic said in a Team Jumbo-Visma news release. “The team once again did a fantastic job keeping me out of trouble during the stage. Besides the rain, there was also a lot of wind. That made for a rather difficult day. It was a tough, fast final climb with a lot of attacks at the end. I came very close to Martin, but he was a bit stronger today.”
Martin got within five seconds of Roglic’s lead thanks to a four-second time bonus. Carapaz remained in third, 13 seconds behind the lead. Kuss lost time on Roglic but gained one position in the overall standings. He is now sixth, 44 seconds off the lead.
Thursday’s result came after Kuss finished ninth Wednesday during the 94-mile second stage. Like Thursday, crosswinds were also the story of the stage Wednesday. That route featured two Category 3 climbs and another Category 1 before a downhill finish in Lekunberri. Spain’s Marc Soler of the Movistar Team won the stage in 3:47:03. Roglic was the first rider from the main peloton to finish. He was 19 seconds behind Soler. Martin was third in the same time.
Kuss surrendered the polka dot king of the mountain jersey after Stage 2 to Carapaz. They both were tied with 14 climbing points. Carapaz extended his lead to keep the jersey Thursday. He now has 18 points, while Kuss is third with 14. Martin has 16 points in the climbing competition.
The Jumbo-Visma riders will look to keep Roglic in the leader’s red jersey Friday during a true sprint stage, the first relatively easy day of this Vuelta. It is a 119-mile ride with undulating roads early before a mostly-flat second half.
Action will heat up again on the weekend with two more big climbing days, including Sunday’s grueling ascent of Col du Tourmalet, the high point of the Vuelta. Sunday will feature a Category 1 climb early followed by two climbs beyond categorization.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
