{"id":860438,"date":"2026-08-19T05:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T05:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860438\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T05:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T05:12:17","slug":"kuss-to-race-his-third-grand-tour-of-the-season-at-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860438\/","title":{"rendered":"Kuss to Race His Third Grand Tour of the Season at Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few riders dare ride the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta in one season. But that didn’t stop US favorite Kuss from winning the Vuelta’s red jersey last time he did it.<\/p>\n

\"Sepp<\/p>\n

(Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Updated August 18, 2026 11:50AM<\/p>\n

Sepp Kuss<\/a> isn\u2019t slowing down now that he\u2019s a husband, father, and owner of stage wins in all three grand tours.<\/p>\n

Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed Tuesday that Colorado\u2019s climbing king will line up for his third grand tour of 2026 this weekend at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Few athletes dare to try to ride all three of the Giro d\u2019Italia, Tour de France, and Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a in one season.<\/p>\n

Even fewer are robust enough to pull it off.<\/p>\n

In fact, the last man to successfully race all three of the season\u2019s three-weekers was \u2026 you guessed it \u2026 Kuss in 2023.<\/p>\n

And it worked out pretty well for him that time around.<\/p>\n

In 2023, GC Kuss famously capped his sweep of the grand tours by rising above a team leadership conflict with Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Jonas Vingegaard to clinch a palmar\u00e8s-defining red jersey victory.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t expect to see Kuss throwing haymakers at 9-star favorite Tadej Poga\u010dar in the hunt for a second maillot rojo in 2026.<\/p>\n

With Vingegaard out for the rest of the season, Visma-Lease a Bike is hell-bent on stage wins at this year\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

Kuss will team up with the returning Wout van Aert and rising speedster Matthew Brennan as \u201cThe Killer Bees\u201d look to harvest victories after a disappointing Tour de France.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no space for Matteo Jorgenson on Visma\u2019s Vuelta roster.<\/p>\n

The Boise native suffered an off-key Tour de France<\/a> due to crashes and sickness and is likely refocusing on the Canadian GPs and the Montr\u00e9al road worlds.<\/p>\n

Visma-Lease a Bike: Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a 2026<\/p>\n

Wout van Aert
\nMatthew Brennan
\nSepp Kuss
\nJ\u00f8rgen Nordhagen
\nBen Tulett
\nSteven Kruijswijk
\nChristophe Laporte
\nBruno Armirail<\/p>\n

Why Sepp Kuss cannot get enough of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a
\n\"KussKuss famously overcame a leadership conflict at Jumbo-Visma to win the 2023 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. (Photo: Alexander Hassenstein\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Kuss will start this year\u2019s Vuelta with a whopping 54 race days already in his legs after what\u2019s been one of his best seasons yet.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old was key to Vingegaard winning the Giro d\u2019Italia in May and picked up a stage win along the way.<\/p>\n

His breakaway victory on one of the hardest days at the corsa rosa made him the 116th rider in history to win a stage at all three grand tours.<\/p>\n

Only an unusual loss of his trademark \u201cKuss cool\u201d<\/a> prevented him from backing that up with a blockbuster Tour de France stage win last month on Alpe d\u2019Huez.<\/p>\n

But after finishing 13th overall at the Tour, Kuss hinted to the media he wasn\u2019t done.<\/p>\n

The Andorra resident famously loves racing in the heat and steeps of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. He hasn\u2019t missed what he considers his \u201chome\u201d grand tour since 2018.<\/p>\n

And better still for Kuss, the late-summer slot suits his slow-humming engine, one that gets better as the season goes on.<\/p>\n

Some say the fatigue of Kuss\u2019 2023 grand tour sweep blunted his legs in 2024. But Sepp clearly loves racing in Spain too much for that to be a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few riders dare ride the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta in one season. But that didn’t stop US favorite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,68224,85,86795,68380,75495,69111,105196,67883],"class_list":["post-860438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-road","tag-sports","tag-tag-sepp-kuss","tag-tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tag-visma-lease-a-bike","tag-tag-vuelta-a-espana","tag-tag-wout-van-aert","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}