Sepp Kuss, the American Team Jumbo–Visma rider from Colorado, has won the 2023 edition of the Vuelta a España. He completed the 3133.2 km route around Spain in 76 hours 48 minutes and 21 seconds to finish seventeen seconds clear of his Danish team mate Jonas Vingegaard and one minute and eight seconds clear of his Slovenian team mate Primoz Roglic, who completed the podium.
The final stage into Madrid was won by the Australian Kaden Groves for the Alpecin–Deceuninck team, ahead of Ineos rider Filippo Ganna and Nico Denz of Bora-Hansgrohe. Groves also won the green jersey points competition whilst Belgian star Remco Evenepoel of Soudal-Quickstep took home the climbers’ polka dot jersey. The best young rider was Spaniard Juan Ayuso of UAE Team Emirates.
Unsurprisingly, Team Jumbo–Visma won the teams’ classification and they have now completed a clean sweep of grand tour GC victories in 2023 following the triumphs of Roglic at the Giro d’Italia and Vingegaard in the Tour de France. It represents an unprecedented season of dominance by a single team in road cycling.
Kuss, a former mountain biker, becomes the first American grand tour winner since Chris Horner in 2013. He’s a popular champion, having worked tirelessly in the service of his more illustrious team mates for many seasons, and having ridden all three grand tours in 2023.
He won his first Vuelta a España stage at Santuario del Acebo back in 2019 when his exuberance and unbridled joy at achieving his first major win was a pleasure to behold. A tour de France stage win at Andorra la Vella followed in 2021 and he captured another Vuelta stage this time around when he was first up the climb to Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre on stage six. He donned the leader’s red jersey after stage eight and held it for the remainder of the three-week race.