Let’s be honest, it would have been a travesty and deeply unjust had Sepp Kuss ended his career without completing the Grand Tour trilogy. America’s best climber for a generation, the hardest working and selfless domestique around, and probably the nicest man in the peloton, everyone wants Seppy on their team - and everyone wants to see a Kuss win from time to time.
The latest, his first since he won a stage and the overall at 2024’s Vuelta a Burgos, completes the set for him: he has now won a stage in each of the Vuelta a España, Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. It’s not so much an exclusive club anymore with Kuss becoming the 116th member, but that doesn’t make it any less of an achievement.
Kuss’s first Grand Tour stage victory was at the 2019 Vuelta, the year both Jonas Vingegaard – his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate who he’s at the current Giro in support of – and Tadej Pogačar were neo-pros. In other words: the year before everything changed. Before cycling got even harder.
He won a Tour stage in his adopted home of Andorra in 2021, and two years later he so memorably won the sixth stage of the Vuelta which set up the unlikeliest – but certainly not undeserved – of GC victories. GC Kuss, a fan petition to free the Coloradan in pursuit of GC glory, had borne fruit. All Kuss needed to do now was to win a Giro stage and his palmarès would be as good as complete.
It just had to be on the queen stage, a day of almost 5,000m of elevation gain, that the 31-year-old fulfilled that mission. With Vingegaard’s stranglehold on the race not going to come under any pressure from Felix Gall in second, Visma were happy to give Kuss a day off from wingman and man-marking duties and instead infiltrate the break. Unsurprisingly given that 15 of the competing teams have still to win a stage, there was a huge fight to become an escapee. Sneaking in there with consequences for the GC was Derek Gee-West and Michael Storer. Kuss’s presence meant that Visma didn't have to chase.
(Image credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
Giulio Ciccone, in pursuit of his second mountains jersey after winning it previously in 2019, was active throughout, overtaking Vingegaard to reclaim the that classification’s lead, but despite attacking over the top of the penultimate climb and holding a minute-plus advantage, the Italian wouldn’t be the winner in Alleghe. Lidl-Trek would again have to settle for second and third, with Gee-West beating Ciccone to the runner-up spot. This Giro is just not panning out for them.
It is for Visma, though. Vingegaard won’t equal Pogačar’s six stage wins from the 2024 race, but Visma as a team might. On the consistently steep climb up to the finish, Kuss passed Ciccone with a few kilometres to go and marched towards the history books. It wasn’t pleasant viewing – his mouth agape, his head wobbling left and right, and his body craning over his bike, but it was effective. Justice was served. One of the greatest climbers of his generation entered the Grand Tour Trilogy club – and he did so in the magnificent, dramatic surroundings of the Dolomites. The perfect setting for the Eagle of Durango.
Watched on by his mother who was stood 500 metres from the finish, Kuss admitted that he doubted this moment would ever come. “It's something I always dreamt of, but every year it's getting harder and harder,” he said. “I keep progressing, but so does everyone else, so every year that goes by I think it's going to be even harder to win a stage in the Giro to complete all three. I just can't believe it."
His mother’s presence spurred him on especially. “Big shoutout to her and my family, because I really only see them a few weeks every year. It's hard to stay in contact with everybody who's far away, but it was really nice to have her there. I'm always thinking of my family and my friends that I don't get to see so much. This is for them."
It was the fifth summit finish that Visma have won in this Giro. There have only been five. In Vingegaard and Kuss they possess the race’s two mountain goats. It was Vingergaard's comfortable four minute lead over Gall in the race for the maglia rosa that permitted Kuss the opportunity to go for his own glory. “It was never the primary goal. The main challenge was to win the pink jersey with Jonas,” he said. "So far it’s looking good, but when they told me the other night that I had the chance to go in the break I knew I had to seize the opportunity."
He didn’t fail his mission. Jai Hindley moved up to third overall as Thymen Arensman faltered to slip to fourth. Gee-West, meanwhile, jumped up to fifth, 58 seconds off matching his fourth-place from last year’s race. Movers and shakers on the penultimate mountain stage in which Vingegaard’s expected triumph became even more certain. The news everyone will be talking about though was Sepp Kuss finally adding a Giro stage win to his Tour and Vuelta ones. No one can begrudge the ultimate servant of that.
