‘It’s unfair’ – Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic slammed by Sean Kelly for Sepp Kuss treatment at Vuelta a Espana

Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard’s decision to leave their Jumbo-Visma team-mate and Vuelta a Espana leader Sepp Kuss behind on the final climb of Stage 17 was “unfair”, according to Eurosport’s Sean Kelly.

The American, bidding for the first Grand Tour win of his career, still sits top of the GC standings but only by eight seconds from Tour de France champion Vingegaard.

Eurosport experts Kelly, Dan Lloyd and Adam Blythe were unimpressed by the behaviour of Roglic and Vingegaard, both of whom have been helped to Grand Tour wins by Kuss in the past.

“It’s unfair,” said Kelly, a Vuelta winner himself in 1988.

“When you see Sepp Kuss, the way he’s been so [reliable] for those two riders for many years, many races, winning big races for them.

“They didn’t show anything there, they just kept going. Kuss was on the radio saying: ‘I can’t follow this pace, it’s too strong’.”

Kuss played a key support role in Roglic’s Giro d’Italia win this year as well as Vingegaard’s victory at the Tour.

And Lloyd found their unwillingness to return the favour difficult to watch.

“I found it quite uncomfortable viewing, I’ll be perfectly honest,” said Lloyd.

“There are a lot of people out there who think the strongest rider at the Vuelta should win, and that’s a very fair point.

“But again, multiple times during this race we’ve highlighted the job that Sepp Kuss has done in previous races, on this climb at the Vuelta in 2020, at the Giro this year.

“That day at the Giro where Joao Almeida and Geraint Thomas went up the road and Roglic was not on a good day, Kuss stayed with his team leader and rode all the way to the finish.

“I’m not saying Kuss could have won that stage, but it didn’t even come into his brain. [He thought] ‘I’m working for my team leader Primoz Roglic on this day – even though he’s not as strong as I am’.

He added: “With everything that Sepp Kuss has done for them for so many years, well paid but without questioning whether he should be a team leader at any point – he doesn’t want to be – I just feel it’s the best gift they could possibly give him, and one that would see him working for them without any question again for years and years to come in the high mountains.”

For Blythe, the duo’s abandonment of their team-mate said a lot about their character and motivation.

He said: “I just think Jonas and Primoz are going head-to-head against each other. I can imagine the mentality of it is that Primoz is selected first as the leader, then the team have said ‘we’re going to bring Jonas in’.

“To Primoz that would have been ‘they’re not that confident then in me, so I’m going to show them at this Vuelta what I can do, and cross the line first, beat Jonas’.

“Jonas is probably thinking it’s fine, ‘I’ve just done the Tour, not ideal prep, so he’s a young little guy, I’ll show him a thing or two as well’.

“I just think that they are two huge egos, Jonas and Primoz, and neither of them wants to give an inch, to have that dominance of ‘I am the best Grand Tour rider in this team’.”