‘I love these steep climbs’: Kuss and Riccitello blaze up the GC after lighting up the Vuelta’s hardest climb.
Kuss is back at his best and climbed into the top 10 after pacing Vingegaard up Angliru. (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Updated September 5, 2025 03:24PM
LA VEGA, Spain (Velo) — Spain’s hardest climb had an American accent Friday as Sepp Kuss and Matthew Riccitello powered into the top 10 overall at the Vuelta a España.
Friday’s assault on the infamous steeps of the Angliru caused some pain as well as damage in the GC.
Both Riccitello and Kuss were on good days, and each were rewarded with a bump up on the general classification.
For the 2023 Vuelta champion, it’s all about helping Jonas Vingegaard to win the overall title. Anything else is a bonus.
“I always look forward to this day, even though I’m always a little scared,” Kuss said of his return to the Angliru. “I love these steep climbs, they get me excited.”
It was on these beyond-steep ramps where Kuss, Vingegaard and ex-teammate Primož Roglić sparred for control of the 2023 Vuelta before Kuss withstood the barrage to carry red to Madrid to become America’s first male grand tour winner in a decade.
Flash forward to 2025, and Kuss is back in his familiar role as the peloton’s best superdomestique.
‘It was a huge effort’
Kuss made the select group at the most decisive part of the climb. (Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Visma-Lease a Bike threw down the gauntlet Friday, with Matteo Jorgenson taking the final pulls for the Kuss and Vingegaard cut loose on the lower ramps of the 12.5km super-sized climb.
Vingegaard was disappointed he didn’t get the win, and tipped his hat to stage-winner João Almeida who attacked relentlessly all the way up the wall-like face.
The Dane carries the red leader’s jersey in Saturday’s throw-down at La Farrapona, the other Asturian monster that could inflict even more damage than the Angliru.
The Coloradan paced his Visma-Lease a Bike captain through the brutal early gradients, then settled in once Almeida launched his decisive attack with six kilometers to go. Kuss held firm alongside Jai Hindley to the summit to finish fourth and jumped to 10th overall.
“It was a huge effort,” Kuss said Friday. “The pace was even higher in the final. Jonas looked good. My legs felt great, even though Dylan and Wilco rode at such an incredible pace in the first three hours that I wondered if I was going to survive.”
Jorgenson, who started seventh, dropped to 11th on the brutal climb.
Riccitello surges into 7th overall
Riccitello move up into seventh overall after surviving the Angliru grinder. (Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Just behind Kuss, Riccitello confirmed his emergence as one of the peloton’s sharpest young climbers with perhaps his best grand tour climb of his young career.
The 23-year-old Arizonan scrapped with Tom Pidcock, Felix Gall, and Giulio Pellizzari in the second chasing group before crossing eighth on the stage.
The effort lifted him from 11th to seventh overall, his best GC position this deep into a grand tour.
“I have never done a climb in a race that was anything like this one. It was pretty crazy,” he said. “On a climb that steep it’s really difficult to find a rhythm as you are struggling just to get the pedals around. This was really something I have never experienced in a race before.”
Riccitello — linked to a move to Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale in 2026 — is avoiding trouble and moving up in his third run at a grand tour.
“I didn’t have super legs but I also didn’t have bad legs. Obviously, I hope there will be a day in the next 1.5 weeks where I have amazing legs, but I’m also happy with how I felt today, he said. “I just have to take it day by day and keep being there when it matters.”
Expectations were sky high a year ago in his Vuelta debut, but his GC hopes were dashed by a crash in week two.
This time, he is closing in on a career-first top-10 finish, and could go even higher with plenty more vertical stacked up in the back end of this Vuelta.