Kuss sceptical of Vingegaard retirement rumours after Tour de France crash: ‘It’s all about that mental shift’

Visma | Lease a Bike came to the Tour de France to win the yellow jersey with Jonas Vingegaard. After his victory in the Giro d'Italia, he seemed completely ready, but things went wrong on the fifteenth stage. His crash means the Dutch team must continue without its leader. How does the Dane view his future in cycling?

For two years in a row, Jonas Vingegaard was the world’s most dominant general classification rider, with two Tour victories in 2022 and 2023. But for two years in a row, he was also soundly defeated by Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian won his third and fourth Tour de France titles in 2024 and 2025. This year, however, Vingegaard arrived in France with a new training regimen and renewed vigor.

It didn’t pay off much for him in the first two weeks, but the grueling third week was supposed to bring him the yellow jersey. Visma | Lease a Bike began their campaign in stage fifteen, but that’s exactly where things went wrong. With 22 kilometers to go, Vingegaard took a hard fall. He broke his collarbone in the crash, forcing the Dane to withdraw from the Tour de France while sitting in second place in the general classification.

For him, Visma | Lease a Bike, and lead-out man Sepp Kuss, it was a blow. “It’s disappointing, because our part of the race was only going to start on that stage,” the American told Cyclism’Actu after his time trial on Stage 16. “It happened right before the final climb. We’re all thinking about how it could have been. But we still have a good group, and we’ve made the adjustment. We miss Jonas, but we’re looking ahead to the coming days—it’s going to be fun.”

So, a new Tour is beginning for Visma | Lease a Bike. Not for Vingegaard, though: he’ll have to watch from home. Twitter was abuzz with speculation—would he be able to handle such a major disappointment again? Some spoke of an early retirement for the Dane, but Kuss is very clear about how his team leader is doing.

"You get used to disappointments; it's part of the sport," he explains. "Jonas was disappointed, of course, but he was in good spirits. He knows it could be worse; he’s had worse crashes. He’ll be back next year, and he’s already looking forward to it. It’s all about that mental shift—something you get used to as a cyclist. As a rider, you experience more disappointments than victories.”

For Kuss himself, this opens up new opportunities. He won a stage in the Tour in 2021, but will now have more freedom to go on the attack. “I hope to be in the breakaway during the tougher mountain stages. I’ll try to enjoy those moments at the front of the Tour—those moments are special in their own right. As for Stages 19 and 20: it depends on what UAE decides to do. We’ll try something every day.”