“The team needs him badly in the coming years,” said Sepp Kuss, who Robert Gesink says is the key to Vingegaard’s plan to beat Pogacar.

Even though Tadej Pogacar was at his very best in the 2024 Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard’s race was far from perfect due to a number of reasons. The Dane’s right-hand man Sepp Kuss was also noticeably missing, along with his terrible crash in the Basque Country in April.

Robert Gesink, who recently retired after a long career with Team Visma | Lease a Bike in all of its different guises over the years, says that the American super-domestique could be a very important factor in Vingegaard’s bid to take back the Maillot Jaune from Pogacar at the 2025 Tour de France next summer.

“Do you need a crowbar to make the other team work harder?” “Then you can’t get away from Sepp,” Gesink tells Wieler Revue. “In a Grand Tour, you find out what kind of meat is in the tub when things get tough.” Sepp is great. As a boss and as someone who helps. On the way up, he often made sure that our team could make the difference.

Kuss did play a big part in Vingegaard’s and Primoz Roglic’s Grand Tour wins, and he even won the Vuelta a España himself in 2023. Many cyclists think that the American is the best mountain domestique in the whole race because of how well he has done over the years.

For the fight between Jonas and Tadej Pogacar in the coming years, the team will need him more than anyone else. Our group came up with a plan where everyone would go through hell for each other. That’s what it was all about, and I don’t see other teams doing that,” Gesink, who is 38 years old, says. “Some other teams have great riders and come close to what we did with Visma, but I see a lot of teams where no one gives up for the others.” The players Sepp and Edo (Edoardo Affini, ed.) really show how to do it.”