America's Biggest Sports Story Is Going Unnoticed

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.   

Tour de France 2023: Saint Quentin-en-Yveslines - Paris

 

Route Description: The final stage was from Saint Quentin-en-Yveslines to Paris. This is the typical ceremonial stage from the Paris Suburbs on to the Champs-Elysee in Paris. The finishing lap goes from the finish line up to the Place Charles De Gaulle, with the Arc de Triomphe. A descent of the Champs Elysee is followed by a right hand turn at the Place de la Concorde on to the Quai des Tuileries, named after the adjacent parc, along the Seine river. The riders make a left hand turn into an underpass to cross the Tuilleries. Climbing out of the underpass the race takes a left hand turn down the rue de Rivoli. The rue de Rivoli leads to the Place de la Concorde with a quick left followed by a right on to the Champs Elysee going toward the Arc de Triomphe and the finish line.

Next years Tour de France will finish in Nice since Paris will be hosting the Olympic Games within a week of the Tour finish. The start is understood to be happening in Bologna with several stages in Italy before transitioning back to France. The final stage will be a time trial, similar to the finish in 1989 between Greg Lemond and Laurent Fignon. We will have to wait until October to learn the exact route that Vingegaard and Pogacar will have their fourth faceoff for the coveted yellow jersey.

Race Summary and Analysis:This stage finished with an extraordinary sprint finish which required the high speed camera to determine that Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe) had won. This years race had a compelling two man race for the yellow jersey that could have gone the distance if it wasn't for Tadej Pogacar suffering a devastating time loss on the stage to Courchevel. The race for the polka dot jersey, awarded to the King of the Mountains, was very interesting for the first time in several years being fought for by non yellow jersey contenders. The efforts undertaken first by EF Education-EasyPost and then Lidl-Trek to animate the stages with significant amounts of climbs to help both their contenders for the polka dot jersey was great to watch. The difference in tactics was rather interesting to see. The only jersey that was rather anti-climactic was the green jersey, often referred to as the sprinters jersey. Jasper Phillipsen put this competition to sleep with wins on the first few flat stages. Mads Pedersen and Jordi Meuss would win the other flat stages, but they were never close to Phillipsen in the points competition for the green jeersey. The only other rider who might have had a chance was Wout Van Aert, but he didn't seem to be able to sprint at the same level as Phillipsen, and he would not start the final stages after the Alps. Below is a summary of all the winners in this year's Tour de France.

 

The Jersey Competitions:

    Yellow Jersey (The overall race leader): Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)

    White Jersey (the best young rider 25 years and under): Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)

    Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains): Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek)

    Green Jersey (Sprinters/Best placed competition): Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceunik)

The other competitions:

    Best Team time (Best three rider times each day): Jumbo-Visma

    Super Combativity Award (Overall most combative/attacking rider): Victor Campenaerts (Lotto DSTNY)

Stage Winners:

    Stage 1: Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) see the review here

    Stage 2: Victor LaFay (Cofidis) see the review here

    Stage 3: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuinnick) see the review here

    Stage 4: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuinnick) see the review here

    Stage 5: Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) see the review here

    Stage 6: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) see the review here

    Stage 7: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Decuinnick)

    Stage 8: Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)

    Stage 9: Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech)

    Stage 10: Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious)

    Stage 11: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceunnick)

    Stage 12: Ion Izagirre (Cofidis)

    Stage 13: Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers)

    Stage 14: Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers)

    Stage 15: Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious)

    Stage 16: Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)

    Stage 17: Felix Gall (Ag2r-Citroen)

    Stage 18: Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step)

    Stage 19: Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious)

    Stage 20: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)

    Stage 21: Jordi Meuss (Bora-Hansgrohe)

Tour de France 2023: Belfort - Le Markenstein - Fellering

Route Description: The 20th stage was from Belfort to Le Markenstein Fellering over 133.5 km. This stage was a short but mighty climbing stage with 6 rated climbs. The start in the beautiful citadel of Belfort was followed by some lead in kilometers that were going slightly uphill to the first climb of the day, the Category 2 Ballon d'Alsace. In the history of the Tour de France the Ballon d'Alsace was the first climb put on the route back in 1905. It precedes the Pyrennes and Alps by several years. The climb is 11.5km  at an average gradient of 5.2%. The descent of the Ballon d'Alsace was followed by approximately 20km of valley roads leading to the Category 2 Col de la Croix des Moinats. This climb was 5.2 km at 7%, and it was followed by a brief descent to the foot of the next climb. The Category 2 Col de Grosse Pierre was 3.2 km at an average gradient of 8%. The brief descent of the climb was followed by several kilometers of rolling terrain and the next climb. The col de la Schlucht was listed as a Category 3 climb with a 5.4% average gradient over 4.3 km. This was followed by an over 18 km descent to Munster and the foot of the Petit Ballon. Tbe first of two Category 1 climbs in the finale of the stage was the Petit Ballon. This climb was 9.3 km in length at 8.1%. The descent of the Petit Ballon led to the final climb of the day the Col du Platerwasel which has an 8.4% average gradient and is 7.1 km in length. The final eight kilometers after the climb were a false flat followed by a descent to Le Markenstein-Fellering.

Race Summary and Analysis:This stage started with a rollout from Belfort thru the historic Citadel. Once the race began, it was again raced at a breakneck pace. Victor Campanaerts and  Jasper De Buyst both Lotto-Dstny were the first attack to gain some distance on the peloton. De Buyst would not keep pace with Campanaerts who was able to start the Ballon d'Alsace before being caught and passed by a breakaway group that had formed. The initial six rider breakaway consisted of Giulio Ciccone and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Maxime Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny). A counter-attack involved Thibaut Pinot, Valentin Madouas, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost), Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Kevin Vermaerke (DSM-Firmenich). This breakaway would contest the first two climbs of the day which Ciccone would take the first position on each climb. In the peloton Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos-Grenadiers) and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) would both crash in a turn on the descent of the Ballon d'Alsace. Video replay showed that Rodriguez slid out in the turn and Kuss had no where to go and somersaulted over Rodriguez's bike. Both riders would have cuts on their eyelids and would need to be bandaged up by the medical support convertibles. Otherwise the riders were unscathed. Unfortunately the crash would affect Kuss as he could not keep pace with the peloton and lost 20 minutes on the stage to the yellow jersey and fell out of the top 10 in the GC standings. He has not had any luck seeing as last weekend he was caught up in the crash with the selfie-ing fan. Rodriguez would be paced back to the peloton by his team car, but would not be able to make any sizeable gain in the GC, yellow jersey standings.

 On the col de Grosse Pierre Thibaut Pinot who was in a countermove would bridge up to the leading six riders. Ciccone would be the first to crest the climb, and the remaining members of the counter-attack would catch on forming a large breakaway. The breakaway would never get more than a minute and a half lead on the peloton. At the top of the Col de la Schlucht, Ciccone took the maximum points and celebrated winning the polka dot jersey. Thibaut Pinot attacked the breakaway that was disintegrating on the Petit Ballon and rode into an extremely vocal crowd of his supporters at the top of the climb. He crested with a 30 second lead over the first chase group which contained Tom Pidcock and Warren Barguil. Pinot started the Col du Platerwasel all alone, but he would be caught mid way up the climb by the first chasing group. They would be caught by a group that surged from the peloton of Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates) , Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), and Felix Gall (Ag2r-Citroen).  The trio would crest the col together, but be joined by Simon and Adam Yates during the descent. Tadej Pogacar would win the sprint for the stage win contested by the lead group of five. Pinot managed to be in the second group on the descent, but would not make the junction with the lead group before the finish line. He would finish seventh on the stage in his swansong Tour de France. 

 

Tour de France 2023: Moirans-en-Montagne - Poligny

 

Tour de France 2023: Moutiers - Bourg-en-Bresse

 Kasper Asgreen would finally have the stage winning success that had so far eluded Soudal-Quickstep in a breakaway on a flat stage. We were reminded that the breakaway can still win on a flat stage, and upset the formula of how flat stages typically go down. The sprinters missed out on an opportunity for likely their last stage win before Paris.

Route Description: The 18th stage was from Moutiers to Bourg-en-Bresse over 184.9 km. The stage started in the valley at the foot of the Col de la Loze climb used the previous day. The course then snaked its way along the valley floor to leave the Alps behind.On the route were two category 4 climbs followed by the mid race sprint was located 132.9 km into the stage. The remainder of the stage was relatively flat and nearly perfect for a sprint finish.

Race Summary and Analysis:This stage started with 152 riders leaving Moutiers. Notably Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) did not start the stage. The early breakaway would be formed by Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quickstep), Victor Campaneaerts (Lotto-Dstny), and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X). They would get a maximum lead of one minute 48 seconds, but for the majority of the stage their lead would be at around one mnute or less. The teams with sprinters still in the race set the pace in the peloton to be able to reel in the break. Jayco-AlUla, Alpecin-Deucinck, and DSM-Firmenich each had riders at the front of the peloton focused on managing the break. With 65km to go the break had only about a 24 second gap when Pascal Eenkhorm (Lotto-Dstny) attacked from the peloton. Campanaerts would drop back to his teammate and they would work together to regroup with Asgreen and Abrahamsen. The break would have a 40 second with 20 km to go and a 20 second lead with 10km left in the stage. The sprint teams usually want to capture the breakaway between 20 and 10 km to go. The ideal situation for these teams is to capture the breakaway closer to 10 km so that way they don't have to worry as much about counterattacks. The later the catch is made in a stage, particularly inside 10 km, reduces the amount of time that the sprinters can line up their lead out trains. The chaos involved with the breakaway being caught in the final 3 kilometers sometimes results in unexpected stage winners. The breakaway had a lead of less than 10 seconds with 3 km to go. The usual rule of thumb is that a breakaway should lose one minute per kilometer to the peloton in the final 10 km of a flat stage. The breakaway at this point should have been still cuaght seeing as the peoloton could probably visually see the four leaders. The peloton would miss out on making the catch of the breakaway as they finally caught the tail end of the leading quartet at the finish line. Instead the breakaway riders would contest the stage win and Kasper Asgreen would finally break the drought for Soudal-Quickstep. This team had no luck with Fabio Jakobsen before he abandoned, and had sent Asgreen and Alaphilliippe in multiple day long breakaways to come up empty handed. Jasper Phillipsen (Alpecin-Deucinck), wearer of the green jersey, would finish fourth.

 

Tour de France 2023: Saint Gervais Mont Blanc - Courchevel

 The stage after the time trial in the high Alps with the highest altitude pass as part of the finale of the stage was meant to have drama. The drama definitely showed up with Felix Gall winning from the breakaway with a master class of climbing strength over the Col de la Loze. The yellow jersey competition would be driven wide open with Tadej Pogacar's inability to keep pace with the yellow jersey over the last climb.

Route Description: The 17th stage was from Saint Gervais Mont Blanc to Courchevel over 165.7 km. The stage starts with the Category 1 climb, Col des Saisies, starting 17.1 km into the stage and cresting 13.4 km further down the road. The descent of the Col des Saisies is followed by the mid-stage sprint at Beaufort. Almost immediately after the sprint is the start of the climb of the Category 1 climb of the Cormet de Roseland which is 19.4km in length. A long descent from the top of the col preceded the Category 2 Cote de Longefoy which was only 6.6km long. A very technical descent would lead the race to the foot of the Col de la Loze, an HC category climb, with a length of 28.1 km. The climb also had bonus seconds at the top. The descent of the Col de la Loze to Courchevel was down a bicycle path. The finish line for Courchevel was setup at the top of the runaway which meant a super steep final 500 meters of the stage.

Race Summary and Analysis: A large breakaway would form including Alexis Renard (Cofidis). French champion Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost), Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Neilson Powless, Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Giulio Ciccone, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), Felix Gall (AG2R-Citroën), Rui Costa (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Victor Lafay (Cofidis), Kevin Vermaerke (DSM-Firmenich), Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech), Simon Yates, Lawson Craddock, Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), Clément Champoussin (Arkea-Samsic), Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X) formed 20km into the stage. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) would crash inadvertently 15 km into the stage on an uphill section of the stage. He would ride on unscathed. Giulio Ciccone would be the first to crest both the Col du Saisies, Cormet de Roseland, and Cote de Longefoy to solidify his lead on the King of the Mountain jersey. The breakaway would be reduced to 15 riders at the start of the Col de la Loze.. The breakaway was being driven by the three riders of Ag2r-Citroen. Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious), Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) and Felix Gall (Ag2r-Citroen) had the most to gain from being in the break as they could climb higher in the general classification. As the race hit the steep part of the climb, the bicycle path to the top of the climb, Felix Gall attacked the reduced break to win the stage. He would survive the extreme slopes of this climb and win. Meanwhile in the yellow jersey group Jumbo-Visma set a solid pace as the climb started. Their efforts would bear fruit as Tadej Pogacar would be distanced 13 km from the top. Once Jumbo-Visma noticed the gap had opened Sepp Kuss went to the lead of the group  and set a blistering pace to increase the gap. Eventually Jonas Vingegaard would attack in the upper sections of the climb and started to reduce the gap to the lone leader Felix Gall. He would be briefly held up by a stalled sedan containing race organizers and/or referees. The delay may have affected Vingegaard's ability to win the stage, but it probably had little impact on his time gain over Pogacar. Vingegaard would end up finishing one minute 52 seconds behind the stage winner with Pello Bilbao and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) riding with him into the final 500 meter incline. Tadej Pogacar would finish seven minutes and 37 seconds behind the stage winner and is now seven minutes 35 seconds behind Vingegaard in the race for the yellow jersey. It seems quite evident that Vingegaard had a plan to attack today on the hardest stage in the mountains in this year's Tour de France. The Tour is not over as there are three stages left before the ceremonial stage on the Champs Elysee, and Saturday is another serious climbing stage with an uphill finish.

Tour de France 2023: Passy - Combloux

 

Route Description: The 16th stage was an individual time trial from Passy to Combloux over 22.4 km. In the individual time trial every rider will depart in reverse order of the general classification standing, the overall standings or the competition for the yellow jersey, and ride the entire route on their own. This means that the final rider out of the start is the yellow jersey. If they pass another or get passed this must be done with separation so as to avoid drafting off the rider being passed. The route left Passy and climbed the Cote de la Cascade de Coeur before passing the first time check at Passy Chef-Lieu 7.1 km into the stage. This was followed by a descent into the town of Sallanches which hosted the 1989 World Championships won by the '89 Tour de France champion American Greg Lemond. A relatively flat section of road existed between Sallanches and Domancy, where the second time check existed at 16.1 km, followed by the climb of the Category 2 Cote de Domancy. At the top of the Cote de Domancy was the third and final time check. From the final time check were 3.5 km of further climbing to the finish line at Combloux.

Race Summary and Analysis: I won't bore you with all the changes in the lead over the day. I will instead focus on the major lead changes and the yellow jersey competition. I should state that American Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) did not start the stage after the rest day. Remi Cavagna (Soudal-Quickstep), the French national time trial champion, would set the time at the finish line that would hold for over two hours as other riders could not match his pace. Eventually Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) would set a faster time while wearing the Belgian national time trial champion jersey. His time would hold until the final two riders crossed the line. A succession of riders in the top 10 would fail to beat Van Aert's time as they all rode up to the finish line in Combloux. 

Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Emirates) wearing the white jersey left the starting blocks before Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) sepearated by a mere 10 seconds. Both riders started out going at very fast paces. Pogacar would set the fastest time at the first time check only to have Vingegaard surpass his time by 16 seconds. At the second time check Vingegaard's lead would be 30 seconds. Over the first two thirds of the course Vingegaard had been going faster than Pogacar, and both of them were clearly the class of the field.

The key question of the day was whether to switch to the road bike from the time trial bike for the climb. Time trial bicycles are heavier than the bicycles used on mountain stages, but they are more aerodynamic. The risk of doing a bicycle change is the amount of time lost and getting a quick and efficient exchange of bicycles. Tadej Pogacar would change his bicycle at the foot of the Cote de Domancy costing him 10 seconds. Since at that point he was already approaching 30 seconds down at that moment his time loss immediately went up to 40 seconds. In contrast Vingegaard decided not to switch bicycles. He would then continue to decrease the distance between he and Pogacar while increasing his time gap advantage all the way to the finish line. Pogacar would set a new fastest time at the finish, and beat Van Aert by one minute and thirteen seconds. Unfortunately Vingegaard was following not far behind looking to set a new fastest time for the day and win the stage. At the finish line Vingegaard had beaten Pogacar by one minute thirty eight seconds and expanded his lead in the yellow jersey to one minute forty eight seconds. The tour is not yet finished as there are still at least two opportunities for Pogacar to reverse his deficit,  but the way the two have been riding neck and neck leads me to think this will be extremely difficult. The most likely chances will Stage 17 and Stage 19 which are a major alpine stage and an uphill finish respectively. One question that can be asked is whether Vingegaard may have put too much effort into today's stage and may suffer a significant loss on the next stage, but a short time trial like today more than likely is not a sizeable enough effort to leave Vingegaard out of energy. We should be in for some great racing for the rest of the race.