Late August and the beginning of September means that America's sports fans are focused on their favorite college football or NFL team. If baseball is the preferred sport the pennant races are in full force with the season down to the last 20 or so games. In the meantime the biggest American sports story has been going on in Spain. By the time you read this blog post Sepp Kuss will be doing either celebratory circuits in Madrid or have won the Vuelta a Espana.
Sepp Kuss' victory in the Vuelta a Espana, the Tour of Spain, is a truly amazing story. Kuss was brought to the Vuelta which is the third and final three week bicycle stage race on the World Tour calendar. This race is particularly hilly and mountainous. This type of terrain is ideal for Kuss an elite climber. He was brought to this race to be the last man to set a pace that would eliminate opponents and attacks for either Primoz Roglic or Jonas Vingegaard as overall race leader. On stage 6 he went into a breakaway that would gain over three minutes on the peloton and thrust Sepp Kuss to second overall behind the young Lenny Martinez. Two days later he would assume the lead by remaining with the main contenders on one of the uphill finishes while Martinez was dropped on the same climb. In the individual time trial that started week two he held his own against the reigning World Champion and the other main contenders, including his teammates. In the first high moutain multi-pass stage he and two of his teamates would take the top 3 positions on the stage. His biggest challenge would now be from his own teammates. At the beginning of the final week he would lose a minute to Vingegaard on a short finishing climb. Vingegaard was now 30 seconds from taking the lead away from Kuss, but Kuss kept maintaining that the team goal was for a team member to The next day Kuss would be gapped for a second day in a raow towards the top of the notorious Angliru climb. Kuss was able to reduce the time gap to maintain the leader's red jersey. After social media uproar about the way he was being treated, Roglic and Vingegaard finally started supporting their unexpected team leader and red jersey wearer.
Why is this the biggest sports story?
He is competing in his third three week stage race of the year. It is highly unusual for riders to ride more than two of the grand tours in a season, and there is a tendency to skip the Tour de France to allow for a complete recovery. Kuss is doing the equivalent of an NBA player playing all 82 games as a starter on a conference leading team. Kuss has usually ridden the grand tours as a support rider for other team leaders. This means that he usually will put in maximal effort before ceding the way for his teammate to go win the stage and the overall race lead. He had to change mentality once he got into the lead to focus on remaining with the best riders on every stage. the best way to understand this is a reserve NBA player suddenly having to play like LeBron James every game in a critical playoff series. The change in mentality is usually very difficult for riders who are accustomed to being helpers. The other key part of this story is that he had to fend off two of the best stage racers in the world who are also his teammates. Vingegaard and Roglic showed their abilities in the stages on Tuesday and Wednesday when they dropped Kuss on both uphill finishes. Typically a team will race to protect its leader, the wearer of the red jersey, at all costs. This can include reducing the pace if they are suffering or waiting to provide assistance on a climb. These are actions that Kuss has done for both Vingegaard and Roglic multiple times. In this year's Vuelta Kuss had to deal with teammates that didn't exactly operate to this team tactic. With all the challenges he still is coming out on top.
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