Winners and losers of the Vuelta a España 2023: From Kuss's triumph to Roglic's possible distancing from Jumbo

Today the Vuelta a Espana 2023 finished in Madrid with Sepp Kuss winning the general classification and Jumbo-Visma taking all the podium places. In this article we want to give our opinion on what we consider to have been the winners and losers of the Spanish race in 2023.

There is no doubt that the man of the Vuelta 2023 is Sepp Kuss who, after killing himself in the Giro and the Tour to help Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard to win, knew how to filter at the start of the Spanish race in a breakaway that eventually gave him the red in Madrid. Brutal performance and class, both on and off the road.

Beyond 'tinkering' with its riders and forcing to win as many stages as possible, Jumbo-Visma closes the debate (if there ever was one) of which is the best cycling team at the moment. And by far. Winning the Vuelta topping the podium and with five stages after winning the Giro and Tour is very scary for what can be expected in the coming years.

It has become clear that he is the sole leader of Jumbo-Visma. Despite the fact that Primoz Roglic was looking to equal Roberto Heras' all-time record of 4 Vueltas a España, they included him in the call. Then, they let him attack until he was 8 seconds behind Kuss purely by chance, but without Landa's push on the Angliru the Dane could have perfectly well come out with the red jersey.

Primoz Roglic

Obviously he is not a loser because of his performance, which was brilliant. In my opinion he was the strongest rider in the Vuelta and if he hadn't been in the same team as Kuss and Vingegaard he would have won it. And that's where the drama comes in. The team didn't play with him the card of being the one who had to win yes or yes from the start. He opened the doors even though he could match Heras and that leaves him in a complicated position for the next few grand tours. He knows that when Vingo is in a race he will not have it easy and, considering that he is already 33 years old, if he wants to win the Tour he will have to change of scenery. Bittersweet taste for him.

We expected him to make another leap in his career, but he showed a level very similar to that of 2022, in which he would also have finished fourth but for the abandonment of Primoz Roglic. He wasn't bad, but we didn't see him evolve and I think he talked too much announcing attacks that didn't happen. He didn't disappoint, but he didn't excite either.

The 2 times second in the last two Vueltas and was only able to finish sixth. He has not been able to overcome neither the Jumbos nor Ayuso and Mikel Landa, who are not at all brilliant. Year after year we don't see him evolve, we don't see him getting better in the mountains and even less in time trials. He must work very hard if he wants to retire with a big one in his pocket. Complete disappointment.