Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2023, stage 18: Pola de Allande - La Cruz de Linares, 178.9k

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Kuss' view on racing in 2020 was that it is something he is there to stop happening. Justifying the most negative, pathetic examples of non-racing this side of Adam Hansen waking up on a rainy day, giving an interview where he insists that riders should only race if the stage finishes on the steepest climb, and then the team actually racing like they believe that. Using him as this negative weapon, to kill off all racing, but never actually add to racing.

This continued for a couple of years, largely until Vingegaard took control of the team as a clear leader alongside Rogla, for whom Sepp basically did nothing while every mountain stage ended in a 15-man group ride at a tempo tapped out by somebody like George Bennett, and then Sepp would be there telling everybody how hard they raced the stage, while breathing through his nose and having done absolutely nothing.

Nowadays the dislike is ingrained and as his racing has become less objectionable to me, the way he is pushed as this wonderful, benevolent super nice guy really grinds my gears, and the more people seem to be won over by his Mary Poppins exterior, the more I want him to go away.

Thanks for answering my question here weeks ago. Now I get it all

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Libertine working that bait like a champ. Love to see the hustle here.

 

[Potomac]

Yeah. And more generally first name talking about distant sportstars is always cringy anyway. Ex.: "Remco".

I generally deplore using first names for athletes. But Remco is the perfect exception. The name "Evenepoel" doesn't inspire confidence for an anglophone trying to pronounce or spell it.
Contrast with "Remco" which looks easy to say and spell. It is such an unusual name that inspires mirth, reminding me of Ronco products.

Ronco - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I keep expecting adds for the Bassomatic when I hear or see "Remco"

 

[Krzysztof_O]

So the JV storm is over. Vingo & Rogla accepted domestique roles for mighty Sepp, who at the end stomped Skeletor completely showing who's the strongest!

 

[RedheadDane]

trouble is that his gc ...bid...failed by design....the planned 20+ minute loss instead of fighting for gc....

I'm pretty sure the initial 27 minutes time loss - on the Tourmalet stage - wasn't by design...
Some of the subsequent time losses, sure, but that one.

 

[Vino's Mum]

trouble is that his gc ...bid...failed by design....the planned 20+ minute loss instead of fighting for gc....like guys like ummm pogi do even when it doesnt look good for them. p..s..ing out of the gc because he is afraid of losing...and ugly...to real gc riders that are in shape and not hurt isnt animating...its throwing the race in order to do gimmick rides for stages...he must have his publi(cyst) on his radio instead of his team. jumbo jisss antics with 3 stage/tour winner potentially is a nice problem to have....but remcos team that trained for gc to have him and his publi(cyst) decide during the race that there are more social media likes for doing gimmick rides...should be not happy. he shouldn't be holding his head high...he only dominates lower rank and injured riders. another gimmick ride while avoiding his weakness to real gc riders that are in shape, unhurt.

Rent free.

All your posts this week are you hating on Remco. All of them.

 

[bill1109]

I generally deplore using first names for athletes. But Remco is the perfect exception. The name "Evenepoel" doesn't inspire confidence for an anglophone trying to pronounce or spell it.
Contrast with "Remco" which looks easy to say and spell. It is such an unusual name that inspires mirth, reminding me of Ronco products.

Ronco - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I keep expecting adds for the Bassomatic when I hear or see "Remco"

yes,,,the hype is well thought out...remco is a gimmick name...that matches gimmick rides. to me..evenepoel...ryhmes with sesspool...eventual...as i have said ...his publi(cyst) is doing a great job...but as shown in this vuelta...the myth turned p...s..y when he clearly saw that jumbo jizz had 3 riders stronger than him....so rather than see his monkey with tongue out sufferring and losing...best to lose 20+ minutes to try to get ..."i will never give up" stage wins...which are the very definition of giving up. again...thank god for riders like pogi...they fight...on camera...even when losing...remco is a joke.

 

[bill1109]

Rent free.

All your posts this week are you hating on Remco. All of them.

yes,,,they are..thx for noticing..i did my best to make that very very obvious...i cannot stand him or his fans. what is rent free? is that the usual jabroni comment where you say that you or someone lives rent free in my mind? lol...get some new quotes. remco is not a factor in this vuelta...or in any major tour where the real gc riders are in shape, uninjured. this vuelta makes that obvious.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Maybe Kuss shouldn't be ashamed of himself, but he should be embarrassed that such a pathetic show of passivity is the only reason he's winning a Grand Tour.

The Jumbo team brass should be ashamed of themselves for letting Twitter decide their strategy for them because they're so scared of negative PR that they can be bullied into doing whatever a bunch of people who follow Jonathan Vaughters unironically want.

Jonas and Primož should be ashamed of themselves for being so weak they accept such instructions and perform their act so transparently fakely.

You can‘t be serious. Kuss is leading a GT because he’s stronger than anyone not on his team and the other team leaders underestimated him when he went up the road.

It‘s not in any team’s interests to then have their two main GC riders engage in a three way internal team battle against each other and the guy who is the team’s most important domestique. It would cause total carnage to team morale. They would end up with two of the three of them demoralised and resentful. And their other riders, not least Wout, would be learning some undesirable lessons about how Primoz, Jonas and team management reward loyalty.

The team has zero to gain from that over having them cruise in together sweeping the podium. Kuss obviously has zero to gain from that. Roglic is in a losing position anyway and has little to gain from demonstrating that while simultaneously antagonising everyone. Vingegaard does have something to gain, but rationally speaking he has much bigger considerations than this Vuelta. He wants to arrive at the next whole series of TdeFs with the happy and loyal service of Sepp Kuss and doesn’t particularly want to be seen as an ingrate by the rest of his teammates.

I honestly don’t think any team in the peloton would just say go to war lads.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

This is probably what watching the Vuelta back in the El Correo-El Pueblo Vasco days was like. There's some organisational shambles or another, some GC hopeful has a bad day and then goes on huge unchecked breakaway, the big name foreign teams bully the organisation into changing the route or rules around them, the local teams get dominated, a load of riders crash out with poorly planned finishes and then the whole thing is won by some domestique who wouldn't be given the time of day as a threat in a Tour or Giro GC battle. We even got some good old fashioned heavy-handedness from the Guardia Civil!

In that respect it's actually a brilliant throwback Vuelta...

 

[saunaking]

Jumbo *** themselves and this is all on them.
Tried to outsmart everyone having Sepp in that early break when employing the Sky strategy
the would have smashed all their opponents anyways because the have BY FAR the strongest
riders in the race.
Checkmated themseleves

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Jumbo *** themselves and this is all on them.
Tried to outsmart everyone having Sepp in that early break when employing the Sky strategy
the would have smashed all their opponents anyways because the have BY FAR the strongest
riders in the race.
Checkmated themseleves

Their actual mistake was bringing two leaders who were the two GC favourites. This is less messy than it would be if they’d smashed everyone and then Vingegaard and Roglic were leading with a small time gap between them. They can probably both swallow deferring to Kuss more easily than either would accept deferring to the other. Kuss isn’t a rival for team supremacy, they both are indebted to him and they both want his services next year.

 

[bill1109]

Jumbo *** themselves and this is all on them.
Tried to outsmart everyone having Sepp in that early break when employing the Sky strategy
the would have smashed all their opponents anyways because the have BY FAR the strongest
riders in the race.
Checkmated themseleves

yes..having the top 3 gc riders is all on them. a great problem to have. they did outsmart everyone. internal politics aside...they will clearly win this race. again...it is a horrible problem to have. so how did they checkmate themselves? get caught up in the drama much? teams jobs are to win bike races...they right now have 3 guarantees that their team will win. its fun to get caught up in the roglic/vinggo/kuss drama....but the team that actually pays them to do what they do is guaranteed a win. how is this a problem? i like roglic too...but he is on a team. it is the reality of racing. if im the sponsor i say wow, we have 3 guys that can win...but let the lemmings get caught up in their favorite riders...loyalr domestiques winning....the goal is larger than you favorite rider ...get it?

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

yes,,,they are..thx for noticing..i did my best to make that very very obvious...i cannot stand him or his fans. what is rent free? is that the usual jabroni comment where you say that you or someone lives rent free in my mind? lol...get some new quotes. remco is not a factor in this vuelta...or in any major tour where the real gc riders are in shape, uninjured. this vuelta makes that obvious.

Rent free?
Rant free?
Free choice.

 

[Rob5091]

First Cofidis soigneur and now a Jumbo - best fun of the Vuelta - "come for the cycling, stay for the wrestling!"
Well Remco won - chapeau ... sort of. Jumbo held on to top 3 - everyone else too tired or protecting their place on GC. After the torrid Giro, we now seem to have Torrid Giro 2 - let's hope something happens on the last weekend too!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Rent free?
Rant free?
Free choice.

I'd prefer rat free.

 

[zlev11]

Kuss' view on racing in 2020 was that it is something he is there to stop happening. Justifying the most negative, pathetic examples of non-racing this side of Adam Hansen waking up on a rainy day, giving an interview where he insists that riders should only race if the stage finishes on the steepest climb, and then the team actually racing like they believe that. Using him as this negative weapon, to kill off all racing, but never actually add to racing.

This continued for a couple of years, largely until Vingegaard took control of the team as a clear leader alongside Rogla, for whom Sepp basically did nothing while every mountain stage ended in a 15-man group ride at a tempo tapped out by somebody like George Bennett, and then Sepp would be there telling everybody how hard they raced the stage, while breathing through his nose and having done absolutely nothing.

Nowadays the dislike is ingrained and as his racing has become less objectionable to me, the way he is pushed as this wonderful, benevolent super nice guy really grinds my gears, and the more people seem to be won over by his Mary Poppins exterior, the more I want him to go away.

Plus we now have a diet of commentators and pundits who all think he's wonderful and we should neuter racing to his benefit because he happens to speak their language.

Kuss has also in a way robbed us of racing in this race as well. without him in the jersey we probably would've seen an all out, gloves off battle between Roglic and Vingegaard but instead they had to half-ass it to not drop Sepp too badly and now today they didn't race against each other at all.

 

[Oldermanish]

In the US, this is our gestalt.

...No Sh*t. Maybe not our best attribute.

 

[RedheadDane]

First Cofidis soigneur and now a Jumbo - best fun of the Vuelta - "come for the cycling, stay for the wrestling!"

The Cofidis guy... okay, apparently they were afraid he was gonna cause an incident with his cheering.
The Jumbo guy? Looked like his was just... minding his own business, doing soigneur stuff. Did they discover he stole a puppy, or something?

 

[bill1109]

Rent free?
Rant free?
Free choice.

Rant free?

 

[Oldermanish]

Kuss' view on racing in 2020 was that it is something he is there to stop happening. Justifying the most negative, pathetic examples of non-racing this side of Adam Hansen waking up on a rainy day, giving an interview where he insists that riders should only race if the stage finishes on the steepest climb, and then the team actually racing like they believe that. Using him as this negative weapon, to kill off all racing, but never actually add to racing.

This continued for a couple of years, largely until Vingegaard took control of the team as a clear leader alongside Rogla, for whom Sepp basically did nothing while every mountain stage ended in a 15-man group ride at a tempo tapped out by somebody like George Bennett, and then Sepp would be there telling everybody how hard they raced the stage, while breathing through his nose and having done absolutely nothing.

Nowadays the dislike is ingrained and as his racing has become less objectionable to me, the way he is pushed as this wonderful, benevolent super nice guy really grinds my gears, and the more people seem to be won over by his Mary Poppins exterior, the more I want him to go away.

Plus we now have a diet of commentators and pundits who all think he's wonderful and we should neuter racing to his benefit because he happens to speak their language.

Get it out. Get it all out.
For sure; I'd prefer watching Movistar screw Nairo or Sky do the exact same thing but have a surly Wiggins as their poster child. The talking heads surely lost their minds because they are micro-analyzing their niche sport and, over a 6 hour broadcast precious little happens. The melodrama gave them more fire than anything that's happened since Festina or the Disgrace of Lance.

 

[dennisdy]

Kuss' view on racing in 2020 was that it is something he is there to stop happening. Justifying the most negative, pathetic examples of non-racing this side of Adam Hansen waking up on a rainy day, giving an interview where he insists that riders should only race if the stage finishes on the steepest climb, and then the team actually racing like they believe that. Using him as this negative weapon, to kill off all racing, but never actually add to racing.

This continued for a couple of years, largely until Vingegaard took control of the team as a clear leader alongside Rogla, for whom Sepp basically did nothing while every mountain stage ended in a 15-man group ride at a tempo tapped out by somebody like George Bennett, and then Sepp would be there telling everybody how hard they raced the stage, while breathing through his nose and having done absolutely nothing.

Nowadays the dislike is ingrained and as his racing has become less objectionable to me, the way he is pushed as this wonderful, benevolent super nice guy really grinds my gears, and the more people seem to be won over by his Mary Poppins exterior, the more I want him to go away.

Plus we now have a diet of commentators and pundits who all think he's wonderful and we should neuter racing to his benefit because he happens to speak their language.

Cycling is a team sport, and no one has exemplified this more than Sepp Kuss. He has been an integral part of all of Jumbo's grand tour victories. “If you want to win, you take Sepp with you,” Roglič said on the eve of the Vuelta. Sepp has never tried to win a grand tour, and he didn't set out to win this one. A most unlikely situation occurred.

Remco said before stage 6 that he wanted to give away the red jersey. Sepp happened to be part of a breakaway and won the stage. Everyone thought that he would lose the red jersey in the TT, but Sepp surprised everyone and remained in red.

In a team sport you don't attack members of your own team. There are 160 riders of opposing teams to attack you. Sepp is not to blame for the fact that the other teams in this race can't beat Jumbo Visma.

 

[Danskebjerge]

I generally deplore using first names for athletes. But Remco is the perfect exception. The name "Evenepoel" doesn't inspire confidence for an anglophone trying to pronounce or spell it.
Contrast with "Remco" which looks easy to say and spell. It is such an unusual name that inspires mirth, reminding me of Ronco products.

Ronco - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I keep expecting adds for the Bassomatic when I hear or see "Remco"

I even see "Jonas" used by well-established media - instead of Vingegaard. I don't like it. Seems wrong.

 

[Red Rick]

Evenepoel dominates La Cruz de Linares!

w/kg cycling performance climbing records time watt Vingegaard Pogačar Roglič VAM

wattsincycling.blogspot.com

Evenepoels climbing performances pretty similar to Pinot on the Petit Ballon and Platserwasel I think. Did more work in the break earlier though.

GC group very tame climbing times.

 

[RedheadDane]

I even see "Jonas" used by well-established media - instead of Vingegaard. I don't like it. Seems wrong.

When it's spoken non-Danish media, I think the explanation is:
"How the *** do you pronounce 'Vingegaard'? Let's just call him Jonas!"