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

[Izzyeviel]

There are non-Jumbo riders who are still taking the piss

JURY COMMUNIQUE Nº 19.
Art. 2.12.7; 8.3Disposing waste outside the litter zones, unidentified rider .D.D. LOTTO DSTNY; AERTS, Mario UCI ID 10001120231 Fine 500 CHF
Art. 2.12.7; 8.3 Disposing of waste outside the litter zones.197 FELLINE, Fabio ASTANA QAZAQSTAN TEAM UCI ID 10005982456 1st infringement: CHF 500 fine and 25 points from UCI rankings

Art. 2.12.7; 8.6Inappropriate behaviour (urinating in public during the race)134 JOHANSEN, Julius INTERMARCHÉ- CIRCUS- WANTY UCI ID 10015221102Fine 200,00 CHF

 

[tobydawq]

I dunno why people decided that Vingegaard was better than Roglic.
The latter was never allowed to chase when the former was in front.

I was talking purely about today. Roglic could not take a minute today.

 

[tobydawq]

Where did he say this? I missed it

An interview showed on Danish TV2.

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

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.

I've been wondering what the other riders in Jumbo are thinking. I'd assume they're pro about it and do what they're told but you'd also think some must have a favourite between V and R.

 

[tobydawq]

but at least it was just one stage, would have been a hard day's night, if all the big Vuelta-mountain stages here in the decisive latter half, had to go like this.

True.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Wikipedia about domestiques: "Domestiques sometimes get a chance to win stages in stage racing. Typically this would be late in a stage race. " The Vuelta 2023 makes this description totally obsolete. It has been ground-breaking. No wonder it's hard for Jumbo-Visma to navigate in all this. There have been domestiques leading GCs before, but they always faded and thus solved the dilemma themselves.

The Angliru stage caused quite a lot of criticism of Roglic and Vingegaard. But it also showed us that if Kuss were to win the Vuelta, he wouldn't do it as the strongest rider in the peloton. I don't mind really. Both Roglic and Vingegaard have won loads of races already. They can take it, and Kuss will probably accept the role as the unusual Grand Tour winner.

The real problem with this Vuelta was the dominance of the Jumbo-Visma team. To some extent, the dilemma with Kuss overshadowed this - which is sort of fortunate for Jumbo-Visma and the organizers. It made people interested in the race despite the overall predictability of it.

 

[Danskebjerge]

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

But they all learnt it well. Even Chris Horner did. So I don't buy the pronunciation argument. The same goes for Evenepoel btw.

I would accept it when it comes to names from Thailand or something. Like this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Janewattananond

 

[micax]

Vinjebo actually had a pretty good theory:
Yesterday was the "final test"; if he kept the jersey, they'll ride for him.

Well, Vingegaard has been pretty clear for a fair amount of time that he is OK with Kuss getting the win. I think on stage 16, he/they didn't think that he would gain as much time as he did. On stage 17, he explained that he did not know whether to stay with Kuss or follow Roglic and they had no guidance from the team car. It might be that the reason he looked unhappy at the end was because of Roglic's pace (and not - as some speculated - because he missed out on the jersey). This morning, Vingegaard was very clear that they were riding to ensure Kuss stays in red. I suspect there may have been some words spoken in the team bus last night.

Will be interesting to see whether Roglic will accept being dethroned and stay at JV, or he will move on. Because I think Vingegaard will be back next year (also, his racing the Vuelta was only a surprise to the public - JV had known for most of the year that Vingegaard would race the Vuelta if he was fit. So this was not a surprise for Roglic, as some speculate).

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Rant free?

Free to go ranting that is.

 

[GroupDK]

Am I only person who thinks "dedicating a victory" is meaningless?

Meaningless in regards to what?
If that "gift" can keep the radical social-media squeakers from not going berserk, and posting left & right about getting Primoz Roglic shot and other sad things happening to him, simply because he tends to race on big mountain stages in a Grand Tour as the captain.

And of course with the old smearing sentences with Hitler & Bin Laden.
Seems most people found it tacky, also here on Cycling News, it was somewhat uncalled for, "Office" sketchy or not.

# According to other comments, seems the OP was banned today, maybe an overreach from Elon Musk's X/Twitter.

 

[TrekCyclist]

It was a strange choice by JV to come with both Roglic and Vingo to begin with. Maybe they were so sure to win, that they thought - hey let's have Roglic and Vingo fight it out on the roard.
So its a bit ironic that the "breakaway incident" with Kuss put a third JV into the contest. And they had to decide how to handle it, which ended them in a situation they probably dont like.
Only good thing for them is that Roglic and Vingo won the other two GTs this year, so they will probably not go mad about not being allowed to vin Vuelta.

 

[Bolder]

Sepp is not to blame for the fact that the other teams in this race can't beat Jumbo Visma.

This is what I find odd. Is he really among the top 3 strongest riders? Ok, he benefited from having an insanely strong team, but not once did Kuss look weaker than Ayuso, Almeida, Thomas, Mas et al. He still had to ride all those kms and recover each day. I’ve rarely seen such passive racing from supposed top contenders.

 

[pastronef]

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.

ah yes, agree about this lame thing of everybody wanting the fairytale Vuelta win for Sepp.
I wanted Jonas to smash it, and Jumbo to get a lot of flak for that. but probably the management understood Kuss is magical and everybody gets they heart shaped eyes if he wins

 

[bill1109]

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

of course remco appeals to you...it ryhmes with rentco, runtco...rinco, rim j...b ...or ringo (as in johnny ringo in tombstone) its an easy nickname that makes one that uses it sound familiar with a so called star....vingo on the other hand...can sound like win-go, winger, winguard...or 2 time tour winner. i can see why you dont like it...since vingo at the top in races, shows remco wannabe gc rider that he is not in the same league. so that being said, ringo, loses a lot of time at the suggestion of his publi(cyst) to be able to catch lots of camera time in gimmick breakaways....that will show the publi(cyst) major money maker in a better light ( to dummies) than getting dropped with mouth wide open as a real non gc rider...its all about publi(cysts) for ringo/remco/rentco/ventco/eventual/ he isn't a real gc rider if real gc riders that are in shape/unhurt show up. its simple to see. only has gimmick rides to get publicity ...when he said kuss in a nonfactor is when i changed my views of him. and it will not change

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Well, Vingegaard has been pretty clear for a fair amount of time that he is OK with Kuss getting the win. I think on stage 16, he/they didn't think that he would gain as much time as he did. On stage 17, he explained that he did not know whether to stay with Kuss or follow Roglic and they had no guidance from the team car. It might be that the reason he looked unhappy at the end was because of Roglic's pace (and not - as some speculated - because he missed out on the jersey). This morning, Vingegaard was very clear that they were riding to ensure Kuss stays in red. I suspect there may have been some words spoken in the team bus last night.

Listened to that pre-race interview as well, and bounced over Jonas' explanation quite a bit.
We have now entered the 4th decade of radio communication, and so the leader of leaders are not expected to make up his own minds? Can you believe it?

A slightly different situation when I started watching in the early 80s; zero radio communication. with Le Patrôns dictatorially taking the decisions.

On the other hand, this answer just adds an extra dimension of spicy entertainment, good or bad. Just like this Vuelta as a whole has been a very special kind of entertainment treatment to my eyes and ears.

 

[Vino's Mum]

^^ lol.

billy, did Remco eat your puppy last week or something?

 

[proffate]

Well, Vingegaard has been pretty clear for a fair amount of time that he is OK with Kuss getting the win.

And why not? Going into this Vuelta, Vinge was on top of the pecking order because TDF > Giro. But if Rog gets two GTs in a year, then arguably that is on par with a TDF --- it's certainly rarer.

Kuss getting a freak Vuelta victory is enough to keep Vinge on top of the hierarchy; plus we all saw that Vinge was perfectly capable of the Tour/Vuelta double, should he ever need to convince team management to back him for it in the future.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

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.

In that case, Kuss' pacifying presence as a neutral third option has prevented us getting some proper Roche/Visentini or Olano/Jiménez hatred out there that would have given us some actual intrigue rather than this kiss-and-make-up stuff that makes Schleck and Contador's bromance on Tourmalet look like Barredo and Costa.

Hell, Wiggins/Froome was more entertaining a fratricidal battle, if only for Cath and Michelle throwing haymakers at each other on social media.

 

[Escarabajo]

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.

Well, maybe today but the other days they tried hard to drop him. Very hard!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

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.

"Hit like and subscribe to vote which rider the PR team tells the DSes to favour"

 

[bill1109]

^^ lol.

billy, did Remco eat your puppy last week or something?

nope...he didnt..i just dont like him or his fans or his publi(cyst) that advised him to lose a calculated amount of time to be allowed to get away with gimmick rides. he chickened out against real gc riders that are in shape, and unhurt in order to get gimmick stage wins. he and his advisors are social media wh...r...s. i wish them the worst.

 

[tretiak]

The question is which is the next team that will do the same for their domestique if a similar situation now arises.

My vote is for Majka.

 

[Danskebjerge]

of course remco appeals to you...it ryhmes with rentco, runtco...rinco, rim j...b ...or ringo (as in johnny ringo in tombstone) its an easy nickname that makes one that uses it sound familiar with a so called star....vingo on the other hand...can sound like win-go, winger, winguard...or 2 time tour winner. i can see why you dont like it...since vingo at the top in races, shows remco wannabe gc rider that he is not in the same league. so that being said, ringo, loses a lot of time at the suggestion of his publi(cyst) to be able to catch lots of camera time in gimmick breakaways....that will show the publi(cyst) major money maker in a better light ( to dummies) than getting dropped with mouth wide open as a real non gc rider...its all about publi(cysts) for ringo/remco/rentco/ventco/eventual/ he isn't a real gc rider if real gc riders that are in shape/unhurt show up. its simple to see. only has gimmick rides to get publicity ...when he said kuss in a nonfactor is when i changed my views of him. and it will not change

What?

 

[Danskebjerge]

The question is which is the next team that will do the same for their domestique if a similar situation now arises.

Yeah, and what will Vingegaard do in the next Grand Tour if Kuss or Roglic is in a breakaway on stage 4, 5 or 6? Will he accept becoming a "domestique" once again?

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, and what will Vingegaard do in the next Grand Tour if Kuss or Roglic is in a breakaway on stage 4, 5 or 6? Will he accept becoming a "domestique" once again?

Teams won't just let Kuss go in such a break as easily again. Not to mention it would be much more difficult in the Tour. GC gets sorted much earlier.

Kuss probably gets to co lead the Giro himself with Kooij bringing a sprint train, and then he's probably fine to mainly be a domestique in the Tour.