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A puncture by Jonas Vingegaard put an end to the Jumbo-Visma team's chances: "We didn't expect so much rain, but it's the same for everyone"
CyclingSunday, 27 August 2023 at 05:51
Sepp Kuss spoke to the media after the tricky opening team time trial of the Vuelta a Espana 2023. Jumbo-Visma's American climber explained that a puncture by Jonas Vingegaard caused them to lose valuable time, but that they were still happy with the performance and that the best thing to do, given the route, was not to take any risks.
"We didn't expect so much rain, but it's the same for everyone, it would have been more fun with a dry course, but we saved the day very well, a pity about the problem with Jonas, until that we had everything calm," he said in a post-race interview. "We lost half a minute, which is nothing for the first stage. With such a complicated weather it was better to take it easy in the corners and not to take risks".
Jumbo-Visma ended up losing 32 seconds to DSM and Movistar, the teams that set the fastest time. That means Roglic and Vingegaard lose that time to Enric Mas and 26 seconds to Remco Evenpoel, as Soudal Quick-Step completed a slightly better time trial by not encountering any incidents. The loss to Geraint Thomas' INEOS Grenadiers was 12 seconds.
These are not very significant differences in the bigger picture but taking into account that they were the main favourites to win today's stage, it comes as a bad first day for the Dutch team which is now on the back foot.
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- Froome wishing to ride the Vuelta...he won't even be selected for the team!frieders320-12-2024
- Keep telling yourself that Remco but you not only have Tadeg to beat but Jonas!frieders320-12-2024
- Seems farfetched - I agree. Mas has beaten him once. Giro d'Emillia I think - 2022mobk20-12-2024
- Barring injuries, by the time Pogacar's dominance fads there will be lots of new young talent. Pogacar is about 1 1/2 years older than Remco. That's nothing.Sweep20-12-2024
- I actually don’t find that too impressive. In my later forties I did similar figures for a 3.5% gradient as a total nobody with no wind assistance. Am sure there’s margin for improvement there, especially looking at all the names on that list.Mistermaumau20-12-2024
- Jonas', was 6 years agospock12320-12-2024
- The race where he overnight suddenly turned nuclear after being packfodder at best for several years. His Sky days after that Vuelta and Pogačar’s last season shall remain the darkest post Lance stuff cycling has witnessed. Good riddance Froome.
UltimateOpportunist20-12-2024 - Finishing the Vuelta seems to be a reasonably attainable goal. Getting on the team to do that will be the more difficult challenge.
santiagobenites20-12-2024 - To be fair, he has now stated his fuel regime had been corrected and the results concur.Mistermaumau20-12-2024
- You can look at things mathematically sometimes to get a better understanding of performance distribution. To be an elite cyclist you may need a number of qualities, say 8 some of which are quite obvious (engine), some more debatable (body type). If you look at distribution you’ll get a whole bunch with 6 or 7 very elevated values but 1-2 not so perfect and occasionally someone will pop up with all 8 really well developed. However, statistically, for that to be a given the chances drop by about an order of magnitude each time so in general for each 2 at the top you’ll have 20 at the next level, 200 at tge 3rd, 2000, etc. I don’t see the actual distribution as so weird, we have a few too many right at the very top level but statistically it’s just because for the past 15-20 years there wasn’t really anyone clearly standing out, level 1 was bunched with level two.Mistermaumau20-12-2024