A super day for the super climbing domestique.
Sepp Kuss attacked with three kilometers remaining on the Pico del Buitre to take a solo victory up at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre. Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) and Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich) finished just behind with Martinez taking over the red jersey of race leader.
It was a dramatic day of racing as Jumbo-Visma put the hammer down on Remco Evenepoel. First, a massive 35 rider breakaway containing Sepp Kuss gained over three minutes on the red jersey group.
Second, teammates Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard dropped Evenepoel and the two worked together to gain time on the Belgian, who was left with no teammates for support.
This was a dominant performance from the strongest squad in the race. Kuss almost took the red jersey, coming up just 10 second short, and vaulted into second place on GC. Vingegaard closed the gap to Evenepoel to just five seconds with Roglic another six seconds back.
That was a lot of full frontal exposure. Evenepoel appeared to be having an off-day and his Soudal Quickstep squad was even further off. That doesn’t bode well for Evenepoel as the Vuelta heads into the second week.
Coming into the race, Evenepoel knew he’d have to deal with Jumbo’s two-headed monster in Tour de France winner Vingegaard and Giro d’Italia champion Primoz Roglic. Now the monster has grown a third head as Sepp Kuss is 2 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of him on GC.
That’s a lot of cards to play for Jumbo Visma and a shit ton of trouble for everyone else in the Vuelta.
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