Sepp Kuss, an American romantic on bicycles, wins the Vuelta

After giving his wife Noemi a big hug, Sepp Kuss looks around. They stand behind the finish of the twentieth stage of the Vuelta a España on Saturday and are surrounded, almost squeezed, by countless photographers, journalists and people holding filming phones in the air. The American rider of Jumbo-Visma gasps an audible sigh. “It’s quite warm here with all those people,” he says, visibly uncomfortable, after which the duo quickly maneuvers out of the crowd.

It is Kuss through and through. Let him be alone, enjoy his bike ride, away from all the attention that comes with it – and the pressure. “If you wanted me to do well, they should bring a sprint train for all I care, so that the focus is on that,” he said earlier this year during the Tour de France. “Then I can do my own thing. I would never want anyone to help me.”

But attention can no longer be avoided now that the 29-year-old American was honored in his red jersey in Madrid on Sunday as the winner of the Tour of Spain. He writes history with his team, as the first cycling team to win all three three-week rounds in one season. That was a preconceived plan, but at Jumbo-Visma they never thought that the man who always drives with love in the service of others would now be on the highest step himself.

Sporty youth

Kuss (1.82 meters, 61 kilos) was born and raised in the town of Durango in the Rocky Mountains, at an altitude of almost two thousand meters. The American grows up among the mountains in an environment where sports are a given; ice hockey, cross-country skiing, skiing and cross-country running, Kuss does it all. Sitting on a bicycle comes later. “I started it as a kind of cross-training during the summer months when I couldn’t cross-country ski.”

As a youth mountain biker, Kuss is one of the national top riders in the US. When he starts studying, he will also start cycling. Kuss finds that sport more challenging because of the tactical element. “Mountain biking is simply cycling as fast as you can for an hour and a half. There is no game in it.”

In 2018 he was picked up as a talent by Jumbo-Visma, and as a climbing assistant for the Dutch team he became a talisman in the most important stage races. At each of the six Grand Tours that the Dutch team has won in the past four years – three Vueltas, two Tours, a Giro – Kuss is the last second to position his leader uphill, even when he is not in top form. “Even then, Sepp is one of the five best climbers in the world,” says his coach Mathieu Heijboer. “Even if he is only good for one or two weeks, he can still make a difference.”

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Kuss cannot resist the temptation to think about his own chance as a leader with those qualities. But he thinks his time trial is too bad to seriously consider something like that. More importantly, he looks forward to the mental aspect of such a leadership role. “In my case, that takes a greater toll than the physical challenge. I cannot imagine how great that stress must be, that you have to pay constant attention and that it can be over in a moment,” he said in the Tour.

An atypical rider

Kuss is an atypical rider in that respect, a romantic who can enjoy a difficult climb and the great performances of others. As far as possible within Jumbo-Visma’s scientific approach, he cycles by feeling. He thinks the Vuelta is the most beautiful Grand Tour because of the rough nature of the race and because he has lived in Andorra since he switched to Europe as a cycling professional. He said the best moment of the past week was the fact that he was able to celebrate his success with his wife and parents, whom he only sees a few times a year and who had flown in specially from Colorado.

His character traits almost got in the way of Kuss in the last week of this Vuelta, with fatal consequences. Because the American did not want to claim his place as leader and wanted to compete with teammates Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic, the original leaders for this Vuelta, they came very close – Vingegaard even came within eight seconds.

Only after Wednesday’s mountain stage did the American unmistakably indicate internally that he wanted to win, and it was decided that the team would ride for him. There was hardly any question of a gift at that time: Kuss rode the time trial of his life in Valladolid, in the tenth stage, and lost less than a minute to the recognized specialists Roglic and Vingegaard over a distance of 25 kilometers. At the top of the steep Angliru, after the duo had mercilessly pulled away from him during the climb, the difference was only nineteen seconds. Kuss rode the fourth fastest time ever on that more than twelve kilometer long climb.

But this Vuelta was nevertheless a wise lesson for Kuss, who said in recent days that he had come to know a different side of himself in Spain. “I have learned that if you want something, you have to stand up for yourself.”