Here’s a scenario: a first-week breakaway in the Vuelta a España sees a dark horse favourite unexpectedly gain considerable time on the main contenders and claim both the stage win and take a significant advantage overall. That’s what happened to Sepp Kuss in 2023 and it’s happened again with Ben O’Connor in 2024.
Speaking at the finish in Yunquera, the 2023 Vuelta champion recognised there were definitely similarities between how he had both taken a stage victory last year at Javalambre and made important inroads on GC.
Unlike O’Connor on stage 6 of the 2024 Vuelta a España, Kuss did not take the Vuelta lead at Javalambre, which went to young French hopeful Lenny Martínez (Groupama-FDJ). But as Kuss said, the parallels were clear, as well as the dangers for the established GC stars in letting O’Connor gain so much time.
“For sure, almost every year there is a break like this,” Kuss told reporters at the finish. “And it’s a big advantage and it was a nice race, today, too.”
As for whether the events of 2024 mirrored 2023, Kuss answered simply – “Absolutely. Like in the move in 2023, there were a lot of guys in the break, they’d all lost time earlier on, so there are definitely similarities. This was the perfect place to get in a move and gain time.”
14th on the stage and in the same main group of overall contenders at the finish Kuss has dropped back to 15th overall, but his time gap on Roglič and all the other major pre-race favourites remains the same. O’Connor though is now 6:05 ahead.
The million-dollar question for leading favourite Primož Roglič, whose Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team severely underestimated O’Connor’s strength, is whether they have the power to reel the Australian back in on GC. Kuss, for one, thinks they will have a real fight on their hands.
“For sure it’s going to be really hard to bring that time back,” he argued. “Ben’s a strong rider in the GC.”
Movistar and UAE Team Emirates, at least until Adam Yates crashed, were present in the chase behind. But while O’Connor proved more than capable of fending them off, Kuss explained that he did not feel that it was the wisest move to give Bora a helping hand too quickly, given their status as favourites.
“It’s up to the race favourites to use their team, everybody knows that Bora are the favourites,” Kuss said. “So we have to put pressure on them. If we start to help them immediately, it’s not playing the best move.”
However, the situation with O’Connor gaining so much time has put all the other contenders in a difficult position, he added. But as much as that tougher scenario also affected Kuss himself, the American could not help but be impressed by what O’Connor had managed to do.
“No team wants a guy like O’Connor that far ahead,” Kuss concluded, “So – hats off to him.”
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