(Paris) The Visma-Lease a bike team, overwhelmed by a thousand problems since the start of the season, has suffered a new blow with the withdrawal of American Sepp Kuss on Tuesday, four days before the start of the Tour de France.
“Sepp Kuss has not sufficiently recovered from COVID-19 and will not start the Tour de France. He will be replaced by Bart Lemmen,” the Dutch team said.
This package deprives the outgoing double winner Jonas Vingegaard of his most valuable lieutenant in the mountains for years.
At the top of his form, the tireless American climber is even so strong that he managed to win the Tour of Spain last year ahead of his Danish leader.
But, after competing in all three Grand Tours last year, a rare and very demanding challenge, the Colorado rider had a difficult 2024 season.
In particular, he quickly struggled on the passes on the Critérium du Dauphiné at the beginning of June, an event which he ended up abandoning.
His absence constitutes yet another setback for Visma which has multiplied the disappointments this year, starting with the heavy falls of Vingegaard and the Belgian Wout Van Aert, both victims of multiple fractures in the spring.
The two leaders will be at the start of the Tour but their state of form remains uncertain.
In the absence of Kuss, another American, Matteo Jorgenson, winner of Paris-Nice and second in the Dauphiné, seems best placed to support Vingegaard or even replace him as leader if the Dane struggles to regain his sensations.