2023 Vuelta a España winner Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) remained determined to see the glass as half-full after a tough, first mountain top finish on stage 4 at Pico Villuercas saw him lose time on three-time overall champion Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) but remain very much in contention.
Dropped as Roglič cranked up the power after a searing first kilometre of the steepest part of the Villuercas, the cemented section known as Collado de Ballesteros, Kuss crossed the line 28 seconds back.
While never ideal to lose time on Roglič, and with other top names like three-time Vuelta runner-up Enric Mas (Movistar) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) also ahead of him at the line, Kuss was in no way as far off the pace as other GC contenders like Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) were both 1:29 back.
Now 13th overall, Kuss looked to regain momentum deeper into the Vuelta, with stage 9 to Granada over various fearsome ascents in the Sierra Nevada arguably his next best opportunity.
But while pointing to Roglič as the key favourite from hereon in after his blazing performance on Pico Villuercas, as the American said afterwards, the time loss was not as bad as he had feared it could have been mid-climb, and he remained very much in the GC game.
“It was super tough, the heat made it hard and also the entry to the climb with such a big group meant it was quite nervous," Kuss said.
“I didn’t have the best of feelings, but then I saw I had [only] lost 20, 30 seconds, so I can be happy with that, actually.”
With temperatures soaring to 40C degrees mid-stage, Kuss also pointed to the heat as affecting the whole day’s racing, with a very slow build-up then culminating in the high-speed dash to the corner of the steepest segment of the ascent.
“It was pretty calm all day, I think everybody was saving a bit because if you go over the limit in this heat, you definitely feel it and everyone definitely did feel it in the end,” he explained.
However, when the crunch moment came and the road steepened inexorably, if Kuss faded, Roglič more than lived up to his role as the key reference point in the Vuelta. But as Kuss said, the Slovenian was always looking to be in stunning form and the result on Villuercas was anything but surprising.
“For sure, everybody knew he was going to be the favourite and that he was going to be really strong like he always is, especially in the Vuelta. This is the confirmation. He rode from the bottom of the climb to the top and he looked pretty strong to me.”
The US rider remained in the running though, and in a race as tough as the Vuelta, nobody can afford to make too many predictions from one first summit stage. Yet the scenario Roglič created with stage 4, meant that if Kuss wants to win a second successive Vuelta a España in 2024, the Slovenian was already in pole position to be as formidable a rival as ever.
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