The man was thirsty, ok?
Sepp Kuss was thrilled to win the Vuelta a Espana stage up the brutal Pico del Buitre climb. He was over-joyed, he was ecstatic, he was bubbly. Actually, extremely bubbly.
Accepting the magnum of champagne awarded to the stage winner, Kuss proceeded to show everyone in the peloton how to par-tay. After the usual spraying of fans and media, he put the bottle to his lips and chugged bubbly for about 12 solid seconds, finally stopping with a huge grin on his face. Good times, good times.
We could find no world records for most champagne consumed in one go, but he clearly has the skillset to challenge for that title. All we could discover was a gentleman named Peter Dowdeswell who drank 1 pint (16 ounces) of bubbly in 2.3 seconds. He has also set the fastest time for drinking beer and milk and a few other beverages.
What’s especially ironic and funny about Kuss’ champagne supernova is that Jumbo-Visma boss Richard Plugge lambasted the FDJ Groupama squad this year for having a beer during a Tour de France rest day.
Plugge earned the ire of FDJ’s Marc Mariot but had no intention of walking back his statement. His subtext was that maybe if the French squad wasn’t drinking beer, they might even win a stage someday.
“Alcohol is poison, and when you are already tired, it’ll make you even more fatigued,” said Plugge, taking the high road of total abstinence in search of winning the Tour for a second time with Jonas Vingegaard.
The Jumbo-Visma boss went on to say that his team isn’t drinking anything, not beer, not wine, not a few sips of champagne. “Nobody [in our team] drinks alcohol, because that breaks you and even those who aren’t riders shouldn’t drink.”
We’re waiting for Madiot to call out Plugge once he sees the video of Champagne Kuss. Clearly, the squad isn’t a “dry” team after all. But we applaud Sepp Kuss for showing us the pure joy of winning a grand tour stage. In our opinion, he deserves to celebrate — Hell, he’s now riding his third straight grand tour of this season. Give the man a break!
He’s already helped Primoz Roglic win the Giro and Jonas Vingegaard win the Tour de France. We’re not worried a champagne chug will affect his performance. We toast to his climbing legs and joie de vivre.
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