Blow for Jonas Vingegaard! Sepp Kuss out of Visma's 2024 Tour de France team due to covid

In a season filled with bad luck for Team Visma | Lease a Bike, things had started to look up when an all star lineup was announced for the 2024 Tour de France. Sadly, illness has struck again with Vuelta a Espana champion Sepp Kuss forced to drop out of the team.

Kuss, widely regarded as the best super domestique in the entirety of the peloton has been a key figure in Jonas Vingegaard's back to back Maillot Jaune wins at the last two editions of the Tour de France and with the Dane entering this year's Grand Boucle untested having not raced since crashing out of the Itzulia Basque Country, Kuss' absence is a blow Vingegaard could easily have done without.

"This is of course very hard for Sepp in the first place. His contribution is always very important in the team, but then of course he has to be completely fit," analyses Team Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Merijn Zeeman to the team's official website of the difficult decision. "Unfortunately, we had to conclude together today that this is insufficiently the case, after Covid. He now needs to recover properly and will therefore not start. Fortunately, we have a good replacement ready with Bart Lemmen."

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As mentioned there, second year pro and former air force officer Bart Lemmen will get himself a Tour de France debut as a result of Kuss' misfortune. A career defining moment for the 28-year-old Dutchman. "Despite only being a professional for 1.5 years, Bart is already proving to be a very reliable and strong rider," Zeeman says, full of praise for Lemmen. "He learns quickly and proved it this year with several good classifications. He is a good climber, and he willingly sacrifices himself for his leader Jonas Vingegaard. I have a lot of confidence in Bart."