"I’d rather be out of the spotlight" - Sepp Kuss officially ends 'GCKuss' dream

For so long one of the leading super-domestiques in the peloton, Sepp Kuss finally got his own chance to shine at the 2023 Vuelta a Espana, winning the Red Jersey ahead of teammates Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic. Despite this realisation of the 'GCKuss' dream though, the American insists he doesn't want Grand Tour leadership pressures going forward.

“It's a role I’ve never really been in aside from the Vuelta last year [where he finished 14th] and even in the 2023 Vuelta, it was never remotely on my radar to be a leader in a Grand Tour, but it turned out that way,” the 30-year-old American says of his general classification ambitions in quotes collected by Rouleur. “I wouldn’t say upfront I am looking for leadership in a Grand Tour or looking for the opposite. For me, if there are opportunities that come along the way, I’ll take them as I have in the past, but also in the past, whenever I’ve performed, it’s never been in a way that upfront it was known that I’d be the one to perform. I take every race in my stride and see where I can get an opportunity. I’m not looking to overtake anybody within the team. We have some super good riders, and I want to help them first, and then we’ll see what I can get out of it for myself.”

As mentioned, Kuss has more often than not been used as the last support rider in the mountains by Team Visma | Lease a Bike, helping the likes of Vingegaard and Roglic to Grand Tour victories. “It’s a role I really like, and it’s a role that’s a lot easier than being a leader in a race. I think it’s a role that I can do quite well and do it comfortably and enjoy it,” he explains. “It’s more and more comfortable for sure, and there are less expectations from the outside on you."

"For myself, I’ve always had the same expectations and motivations regardless, but for the kind of person that I am, I’d rather be more out of the spotlight. It makes it easier. For guys like Jonas and Wout, it’s not easy having that constant pressure and expectation, but different people handle it differently," he continues. "It’s hard to say how it affected me. It was something new and totally different. Going into it, it’s easy to say it won’t affect me, but for every rider, it does, and it’s just a matter of experience and also knowing yourself better and how you can deal with it.”

There is arguably no one better in that role than Kuss. So his return to Vingegaard's side at the 2025 Tour de France could be a big boost in the fight for the Maillot Jaune against Tadej Pogacar. “It’ll be really exciting,” Kuss predicts. “I think Jonas can take a lot of confidence from last year’s Tour, getting there with less-than-ideal preparation and doing a really amazing performance. We know how good Pogacar and the other guys are, but Jonas is really focused on doing his best, and as a team, we’re focused on seeing what we can do differently. How can we do better?”