Sepp Kuss secures overall victory at Vuelta a Burgos 2024 as Pavel Bittner denies breakaway in thrilling finale to final stage
CyclingFriday, 09 August 2024 at 16:15
Sepp Kuss will head to the 2024 Vuelta a Espana in winning form after the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader secured a narrow overall victory at the Vuelta a Burgos as Pavel Bittner took the win on the final stage in Condado de Treviño after a thrilling finale.
With the talented trio of Patrick Gamper (Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe), Michael Leonard (INEOS Grenadiers) and Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates) getting themselves into the day's breakaway, the racing was extremely fast and well ahead of schedule. Thankfully for Sepp Kuss, who started the day leading by just 5 seconds however, none were a threat in the general classification.
Heading into the final 30km, Oliveira had been replaced in the leading trio by Lidl-Trek's Pim Ronhaar, but ahead of the day's intermediate sprint, only Gamper and Leonard were left up ahead of the peloton, but only by around 1:15.
On the final climb of the day though, the gap began to drastically come down and a counter attacking move from the peloton, led by Victor Lafay and Davide Piganzoli managed to get clear separation and began hunting down the leaders. With 7km to go however, Leonard and Gamper still had 30 seconds lead on Lafay and Piganzoli, with the peloton a further 20 seconds back.
At 5km to go though, Lafay and Piganzoli were swallowed up by the peloton, with just 20 seconds separating the bunch and the leading duo. With the gap closing, Leonard launched the first attack from the front inside the final 3km but the Canadian couldn't get rid of Gamper.
In a thrilling finale, Gamper and Leonard were caught within the final few hundred metres, with Team dsm-firmenich PostNL's Pavel Bittner sprinting to the win ahead of Nicolo Parisini and Ivan Garcia Cortina respectively.
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4 Comments
A good result for Visma and Kuss as it showed cohesion within the team. It will also take some pressure off of Kuss as he would want to be known for more than last year's Vuelta win.
Whatever one thinks of how TJV handled things within the team at last year's Vuelta, Sepp beat too many other good riders -- Ayuso, Almeida, Evenepoel, etc. -- to discount the win. As you say, though, this win will help build out the palmares. He is not on the Pog/Jonas/Remco level overall, but he is at or near the top of the next tier, and that is fantastic enough by itself.
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