2023-09-17 18:16:39
It was an image for eternity. Sepp Kuss, Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic rolled arm in arm across the finish line of the Tour of Spain in Madrid. The historic triumph of the Jumbo squad was already certain before the lap of honor to Madrid. The trio formed a podium among teammates in the final score. “It’s hard to put it into words,” said the new Vuelta winner Kuss.
Top Australian sprinter Kaden Groves gave Tobias Bayer’s Alpecin team, Austria’s solo contender at this year’s Spanish edition, a golden finish. Groves relegated Remco Evenepoel to second place in the long final sprint and thus took his third stage win on this tour. The Upper Austrian Bayer saw the goal in the Spanish capital differently than in 2021.
Of course, the focus was on the Jumbo-Visma team. “I’m very happy and it was great how we finished it,” said the American Kuss. The star troupe, reverently known as Killer Wasps because of their black and yellow jerseys, won all three major national tours this year. No other team had achieved this before. Roglic won the Giro d’Italia in May, Vingegaard won the Tour de France in July – and in Spain it was now Edelhelfer Kuss’ turn. The KAS racing team had only had three riders from a team on the podium at the Vuelta in 1966.
One reason for Jumbo’s strength is the weakness of the competition. Defending champion Evenepoel competed without any outstanding noble performances and not in the form of the previous year. And the hard-climbing Spaniards like Juan Ayuso, Enric Mas and Mikel Landa were once once more unable to fulfill the desires of their compatriots. “We expected more resistance, but in the end we had the three strongest drivers in the race,” said Jumbo sports director Grischa Niermann. His riders won five stages in 21 stages in Spain in the last three weeks.
Dominance is poison for sports because it can lead to boredom. It also provides breeding ground for all sorts of suspicions, especially in cycling. Of course the Jumbo professionals were asked regarding it. “We understand the skepticism,” says Vingegaard. “But people should know that we sacrifice a lot and work in great detail. We do everything perfectly in this team and that makes a big difference.” He is “100 percent sure, my two colleagues won’t take anything and the same applies to me.”
What Jumbo cannot explain away, however, is Michel Heßmann’s positive doping test. The German tested positive for a diuretic during a training check on June 14th. The agents stimulate urine production and thus ensure the body’s drainage. He was suspended from his team until further notice in August following it became known. The public prosecutor’s office searched his apartment, where no doping substances were found. The investigation is ongoing. Heßmann was Roglic’s helper at the Giro this year.
The Vuelta brought yet another fraud issue back to the table this year. After Kuss attacked at the Tourmalet with breathtaking speed, was thwarted by a spectator and repeated the attack without hesitation, ex-professional Jerome Pineau spoke of motor doping. “Sepp Kuss drove ten kilometers per hour faster on the Tourmalet than the group before him,” said the Frenchman.
However, following each stage, the top riders’ wheels and a random sample are x-rayed to rule out mechanical fraud. This is not an argument for Pineau. “There is no evidence, but with Armstrong we didn’t have it either and everyone knew it,” said the ex-professional. The team’s dominance worries him. Jumbo-Visma denied the fraud alleged by Pineau.
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