Tour de France Update - Sepp Kuss

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The Tour de France will finish later this morning, ending 21 days of racing. The final, 21’st stage, however, is largely ceremonial - other than the sprinters racing for one last shot at glory on the Champs Elysees, everything has been decided. In the morning, everyone just wants to get to Paris safely. So the day is a celebration rather than a race - if you watch, you’ll see the riders sipping champagne and partying during the route. A couple weeks ago, I wrote a series on the U.S. riders. So how did they do? Durango, Colorado’s Sepp Kuss had his usual good Tour, although it turned out a bit different experience than his previous Grand Tours. Sepp’s main job is pacing his Visma/Lease a Bike team leader, Jonas Vingegaard, in the mountains. That all changed when Vingegaard crashed out of the Tour (broken collarbone) on Stage 15. With no leader, Visma had to try for stage wins, pinning their hopes on Kuss on stage 20. He finished 4th on Stage 19 (Alpe d’Huez,) but it was Stage 20 that had the cycling world talking. Kuss was leading the race, and well on his way to a stage win, when, descending at full limit, he misjudged two corners, crashing twice (the second crash ended up being quite scary - he was very close to bouncing over a barrier and down the mountain.) He ended up 3rd on the stage. Overall, Sepp will end up finishing in 13th place, 1:02:23 behind Yellow Jersey winner Tadej Pogacar. He is the highest-placed U.S. rider in the peloton. That’s a pretty respectable result for a guy who just spent the better part of 3 weeks not trying to win himself, but trying to help his teammate win the entire thing. If only he hadn’t crashed yesterday. Link is to short highlights of Sepp’s second crash on Stage 20: