2023-09-16 18:24:06
After winning the Giro and the Tour de France, the Dutch team will win the Tour of Spain on Sunday September 17, placing three of its riders on the podium. A total domination which does not go without clashes or suspicions.
A collective hallucination. Three riders from the same team on the three steps of the podium in a major cycling tour. We have to go back to the raid by the Spaniards of the Kas team on the 1966 Vuelta (Gabica, Vélez, Echeverria) to find traces of such a performance. In other words: we had never seen something like this other than in black and white. Said again differently: the last time we witnessed such a miracle, anti-doping controls were in their early stages and were not yet in use at the Tour of Spain.
But it is this time in color and under the vigilance of daily urine tests that the Jumbo-Visma team is preparing to repeat the performance. This Sunday, September 17 evening, at the end of a final stage in the form of a lap of honor in Madrid, the American Sepp Kuss should succeed Remco Evenepoel and win the Vuelta ahead of his teammates Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic.
Of the three lads, Kuss was the least likely winner, he who usually revels in the role of teammate. During the last Tour de France, he confided to Libération to live better without the weight of leadership, to be dizzy at imagining “a whole team (s) at our service” and, ultimately, to have “no problem serving” rather than the opposite. The track record of this Colorado native, who celebrated his 29th birthday during the Vuelta, reflected his condition: a few stage victories and only one week-long race in the bag, the 2018 Tour of Utah.
Quite the opposite of his two other teammates, headliners of world cycling, more than a hundred professional victories combined. Each of which has a grand tour this season: the Slovenian Roglic won the Giro in the spring, the Dane Vingegaard the Tour de France this summer. With the Vuelta de Kuss, the Jumbo-Visma achieves a mythological feat: no team has ever won, in the same year, the three major events of the men’s cycling calendar. The trumpets of Jericho sound.
Adversity in the mirror
To seal this historic treble, the Dutch team never seemed in difficulty. His domination was even outrageous. The gap with the first pursuer, the Spaniard Juan Ayuso (Team UAE), relegated to 4 minutes from the winner and especially 3 minutes from third, is an imperfect testimony to this. The demonstrations carried out by the Jumbo on the two most prestigious and difficult stages of the race tell the story better: a historic triplet at the top of the Tourmalet (Vingegaard, Kuss, Roglic), another at the top of the Angliru (Roglic, VIngegaard , Kuss).
On paper, it’s a lesson. In reality, it was more complicated. Because failing to find rivals of its caliber in a competition that it seems to have privatized, Jumbo-Visma found itself adversity when looking in the mirror. The yellow and black have built their own trap and the team, so often praised, envied or hated for its total control of events, has never seemed to sway so much as when having three men for a fine blow.
Since Sepp Kuss stole the leader’s red jersey from Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ), 20 years old, the promise of French cycling, on the evening of the 8th stage, the team has become entangled in the burning question of leadership. At the beginning, we say to ourselves that the tunic is a great reward for the American model teammate, which he will be able to pass on to one of his two leaders when the time comes, especially since he will inevitably weaken, he who was already a leader. tiring Italian and French campaigns this year. But Kuss did not lower his flag and his teammates found themselves going on the attack even though their team held first place in the general ranking.
After a victorious attack by Vingegaard in Bejes, which surprised everyone and left people suspicious about his real intentions, the loyalty trial was launched on social networks. On Instagram, a message implicating the Dane, accused of having betrayed Kuss and Roglic, was even liked by Lora Klinc… the Slovenian’s wife. This does not escape the vigilance of the followers and the controversy swells even more. “It’s not because you like vegan food on Instagram that you are vegan,” she says to put out the fire. In the Angliru, when Roglic and Vingegaard released Kuss together, the Jumbo Twitter account assured almost instantly that the American would have launched “Go guys” at them on his radio. On arrival, Grischa Niermann, the team’s sports director, said that we couldn’t hear anything on the airwaves. Go figure, in cycling more than anywhere else, there is the truth and the stories we tell ourselves.
Suspicions of cheating
What should be a dazzling triumph turns into a tragicomic farce and the impression of disorder prevails over that of power. All this against the backdrop of a well-known little music, that of suspicions of cheating, which is heard as during the last Tour de France, fueled by the astonishing performances of the Dutch team. On RMC, former manager Jérôme Pineau, whose B & B Hôtel team disappeared from the pelotons last year, openly talks about mechanical doping. In The Parisian, Philippe Mauduit, one of the sports directors of Groupama-FDJ, jokes about the doctors caught by the patrol years later. “Everyone who follows our team knows that we constantly try to be as transparent as possible,” sweeps Richard Plugge, the boss of Jumbo.
The Dutch team has unusual financial resources, enabling it to secure the services of the best. Riders who could be leaders elsewhere are used as simple teammates, like Wilco Kelderman, Attila Valter or… Sepp Kuss. An abundance of possessions and ego not always easy to manage. We can imagine the words spoken on the evening of the Angliru, at the Jumbo hotel, during a meeting which made it possible to restore order. It is apparently decided that Kuss will win the Vuelta and his teammates are urged to rejoice. The next day, the violins of Roglic and Vingegaard are retuned and begin the same serenade before the start of the stage. Point of attack between teammates, Kuss is brought back safely by his two leaders who have become Sherpas. Rebelote this Saturday, to see his first major title open up to him. In the dream world, we end with a happy ending.
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