{"id":430527,"date":"2026-01-24T15:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/430527\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T15:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:53:15","slug":"sepp-kuss-says-simon-yates-retirement-is-strangely-not-so-surprising-and-warns-about-vingegaard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/430527\/","title":{"rendered":"Sepp Kuss says Simon Yates\u2019 retirement is strangely not so surprising and warns about Vingegaard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sepp Kuss<\/a> didn\u2019t necessarily see Simon Yates<\/a>\u2019 decision to retire coming, but the Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> rider said he wasn\u2019t completely surprised by the choice either. In a conversation with AS<\/a>, Kuss explained that he got to know Yates during their one season together at \u201cthe Killer Bees\u201d and found him to be a distinctive character.Yates announced <\/a>in early January that he was immediately ending his active career. He still had a one-year contract with Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a>, but after winning the Giro d\u2019Italia overall and taking a stage win in the subsequent Tour de France, he decided he had had enough after last season. \u201cWith great pride and a feeling of peace I say goodbye to professional cycling,\u201d he said at the time.Within Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a>, the news was of course already known slightly earlier, and there was high praise <\/a>for Yates and his decision. Kuss also called him \u201ca nice guy,\u201d although he saw it coming a bit. \u201cIf you know him, it\u2019s not so strange. Simon lives in his own way, and the thought of stopping has probably crossed his mind before.\u201d\u201cIt came as a surprise, and it\u2019s a shame that we lose him in our Tour plans, but we have to go on without him,\u201d Kuss said, who will do both the Giro d\u2019Italia and the Tour de France alongside Jonas Vingegaard<\/a>. \u201cA beautiful challenge,\u201d said the American climber, who has so often been part of a winning Grand Tour squad \u2014 and who won the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a himself in 2023.<\/p>\n

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\"sepp-kuss-victor-campenaerts\"\/<\/p>\n

Sepp Kuss (right) next to Victor Campenaerts (left)<\/p>\n

Kuss has personal and team goals at Giro d’Italia<\/p>\n

The focus is first on the Giro, where Vingegaard is set to debut and hopes to complete his Grand Tour trilogy after his two overall wins in the Tour and his Vuelta title in 2025. If the opportunity arises, Kuss himself would also like to shine in the Giro. \u201cA Giro stage is one of the few things I still miss in my career. If the chance comes, I\u2019d like to grab it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a saying that a change of scenery whets the appetite, and according to Kuss, Vingegaard has more hunger than before with the Giro on his calendar. \u201cHe\u2019s more motivated than in previous years when his schedule was always the same. If things didn\u2019t go well toward the Tour, it felt like you\u2019d lost the whole year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis Giro participation will take a lot of pressure off and place the Tour in a different perspective,\u201d Kuss predicts. \u201cJonas already wanted to go to the Giro last year, but it wasn\u2019t easy for the team. The Tour is the most important race for everyone, and then a Giro participation comes with risks. But he\u2019s motivated, and it\u2019s good that he\u2019s taking on other challenges and stepping out of his comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"ben-tulett-jonas-vingegaard\"\/<\/p>\n

Jonas Vingegaard (right)<\/p>\n

Kuss and Visma | Lease a Bike aim to beat Pogacar and UAE Emirates-XRGIn the Giro, Vingegaard will face Jo\u00e3o Almeida and UAE Emirates-XRG, just as he did in the 2025 Vuelta, before he takes on Tadej Pogacar<\/a> and Isaac Del Toro in the Tour. Kuss also recognizes that UAE is a team to beat, but he still believes in Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a>. \u201cWe have a very close team, with young riders who in a few years will race with the best.\u201dKuss calls Pogacar \u201cfrightening,\u201d but also \u201cmotivating.\u201d Because beating the very best rider of his generation \u2014 and maybe in history \u2014 is what they all at Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> get up every day for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sepp Kuss didn\u2019t necessarily see Simon Yates\u2019 decision to retire coming, but the Visma | Lease a Bike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,43199,5900,15223,130286,82,1422,129545,10761],"class_list":["post-430527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-giro-ditalia","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sepp-kuss","tag-simon-yates","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg","tag-visma-lease-a-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}