"You can play the tactical game, but if Tadej Pogacar has that level..." - Sepp Kuss says Visma will need to be realistic for remainder of 2025 Tour de France

Team Visma | Lease a Bike have been left licking their wounds after a chastening defeat by Tadej Pogacar on stage 12 of the 2025 Tour de France. Sepp Kuss was part of the Visma train for much of the day, but like his team leader Jonas Vingegaard, couldn't follow when Pogacar made his big move.

"First mountain stage of the Tour, and yeah, everyone came out swinging," Kuss laughed in a post-stage interview with NBC Sports at the finish line. "The differences were quite big in the end, but we all did our best," he insists.

Whilst Kuss crossed the line in 24th on the stage, 13:30 down on Pogacar, Vingegaard lost a more important 2:10 to his big rival, leaving the Dane needing a miracle if he wants to claim the Maillot Jaune for the third time in his career. "We wanted to take it up already on the Soulor, try and whittle down the group and then try and play the numbers from there," Kuss explains. "Maybe the strategy was a bit too aggressive for the legs we had on the day, but you can never predict that going into it."

"We can be happy with trying, and halfway through the stage we kind of had to pivot the strategy a bit and ride a bit more defensive. But yeah, in the end it just came down to the last climb and it was a fair showdown," he adds.

Would less aggressive tactics have made a difference? Kuss isn't so sure. "Even if we all had super legs and Matteo Jorgenson could have attacked, Pogacar showed that he had extra to follow every move even if he's isolated," analyses the former Vuelta winner. "So I don't think it would have changed too much, but like I said earlier, we can be proud of how we approached today. Now just take stock and keep looking forward."

"With Matteo we could have played a tactical game, but also the break was too short, so we weren't going to have any riders over the top of the climb anyways. So that didn't matter, but either way we wanted to make a pace to try and isolate Pogacar, but in the end we had to slow down a bit on the climbs and they were strong," Kuss concludes. "Up to a certain point you can play the tactical game, but if [Tadej Pogacar] has that level... That's not to say we are going to give up, but you have to be realistic as well."