{"id":49041,"date":"2021-01-25T18:07:40","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T01:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-sepp-kuss-slated-for-tour-de-france-spanish-vuelta-in-2021\/"},"modified":"2021-01-26T01:07:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T01:07:40","slug":"durangos-sepp-kuss-slated-for-tour-de-france-spanish-vuelta-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-sepp-kuss-slated-for-tour-de-france-spanish-vuelta-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango\u2019s Sepp Kuss slated for Tour de France, Spanish Vuelta in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sepp
Sepp Kuss finished fourth during Stage 17 of the 2020 Tour de France, showing the cycling world he is ready to chase more stage wins during the 2021 season.<\/span>Christophe Petit-Tesson\/Pool file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sepp Kuss is quickly approaching the start of the 2021 World Tour cycling season. He will enter in the final year of his current contract with Team Jumbo-Visma and with more opportunities to race for personal results.<\/p>\n

Now well renowned as one of the top road cycling climbers in the world, the 26-year old from Durango is set to embark on his fourth season as an International Cycling Union (UCI) World Tour rider. In 2020, he made his Tour de France debut and completed his third Spanish Vuelta. With his appearance in the 2018 Giro d\u2019Italia, he has now started and finished five Grand Tour events \u2013 cycling\u2019s marquee 21-stage races.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of ways, I feel different,\u201d Kuss said in a preseason video interview released by Team Jumbo-Visma<\/a>. \u201cI think I\u2019ve obviously learned a lot, but through that I\u2019ve gotten more confidence in myself and the confidence knowing I can be there with some of the best riders a lot of the times. That\u2019s something I never really envisioned when I started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still figuring things out, figuring out what kind of rider I am, but for me, it\u2019s also exciting because I never had any predisposed idea of, at least when I started my career, of what I wanted to do in the sport. It\u2019s nice to still be figuring that out. I\u2019ve definitely matured a lot along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuss is on the Team Jumbo-Visma roster for the 2021 Tour de France and Spanish Vuelta. While he is expected to once again serve as a crucial support rider for team leader Primoz Roglic at the Tour de France, Kuss could earn a team leadership opportunity of his own at the Vuelta along with Dutch rider Steven Kruijswijk.<\/p>\n

Kuss won a stage at the 2019 Vuelta. Last year, he had five top-10 stage finishes at the Vuelta and finished 16th overall. That came after he shined in France with a 15th-place overall finish. He placed sixth and fourth on stages 15 and 17, respectively, with brilliant climbing performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I like the Grand Tours,\u201d Kuss said. \u201cBut, if I\u2019m realistic, I still have a lot to work on to be able to contend for the Grand Tours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roglic would finish second at the Tour de France after losing the leader\u2019s yellow jersey in the individual time trial on the penultimate stage. Kuss was happy to serve in his supporting role and sacrifice the chance to go for stage wins to keep Roglic in yellow throughout the Tour.<\/p>\n

\"The
The next step toward contending in the general classification of cycling races for Durango&#x2019;s Sepp Kuss is time trial improvement, something he said he has worked on this offseason.<\/span>Thibault Camus\/Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kuss then went on to help deliver Roglic to a second consecutive Vuelta victory.<\/p>\n

Earlier in 2020, Kuss won the final stage of the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 in France a day after Roglic abandoned the race following a crash.<\/p>\n

Kuss has earned a team leadership role at the week-long Volta a Catalunya in March in Spain. Success could give him the chance at a co-leadership role at the Spanish Vuelta, where no American has stood on the final podium since Chris Horner won in 2013.<\/p>\n

Kuss has embraced his role as a support rider over the years after his fast transition from mountain biker to World Tour cyclist. With leadership roles come more pressure he has previously avoided. But after some of his dominant performances in 2020, more opportunities are going to come calling to the 2012 Durango High School graduate.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither leading or being co-leader. For me, it doesn\u2019t matter as long as I have the opportunity to at least try and do it in a calm way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Sepp
Sepp Kuss will enter his fourth season on the Team Jumbo-Visma World Tour team in 2021. It is the final year of his current contract.<\/span>File courtesy of Team Jumbo-Visma<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kuss has shown he can not only climb with the best in the world but can finish solidly and safely in the peloton on sprint stages. His next step toward being a general classification contender will be with time trial improvement. He said that is something he has worked on diligently in the offseason, which he has spent in Spain as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made international travel a complication.<\/p>\n

Kuss also is a strong candidate to race for the U.S. at the rescheduled 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, if the Games are held. It could lead to a busy summer with the Olympics squeezed between the Tour de France and Vuelta.<\/p>\n

But he made it clear, the Vuelta is a big goal for 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith it being that late in the season, we\u2019ll see,\u201d he said of his chance to be a team co-leader. \u201cThere can always be changes in the roster. We\u2019ll see how I come out of the Tour and everything but, yeah, it\u2019s an objective that\u2019s exciting to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

get chance to go for more personal results in 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[657,29,2180,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cycling","tag-newsletter","tag-road-cycling","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49041"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}