Welcome to the Grey: My Thoughts on La Vuelta

I’m going to talk cycling again here for a minute. No worries, though, to those of you who aren’t interested in cycling, because the last grand tour of the year is wrapping up so I don’t foresee myself having cycling content to pull from for a while.

But, today I do as La Vuelta a Espana is currently racing and wrapping up in a few days. I talk a bit more about the structure of racing here if cycling isn’t something you are too familiar with. But, to recap, while cycling may seem like an individual sport there are actually many team components that are at play during these grueling, multi-week races. One of the team aspects is that various riders within a team have different roles. There is often at least one rider who is the “GC” rider, which is the rider going for the shortest amount of time to complete all the stages. To help the GC rider are domestiques who accomplish various tasks that aid the GC rider in having the best chances of winning.

Well, this year at La Vuelta team Jumbo Visma had their two expected GC riders, Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard. Primoz won the Giro d’Italia (the first grand tour of the year) and Jonas won the Tour de France (the second grand tour of the year). Their top domestique, arguably the best mountain domestique we’ve seen, Sepp Kuss, is also doing the La Vuelta. This is after having ridden both the Giro and the Tour to help Primoz and Jonas to their own GC victories this year (riding in all the grand tours in one season is incredibly rare and to do all three successfully, as Kuss has done, is even more unheard of).

Surprisingly, starting in Stage 8, Sepp Kuss took the top GC spot and adorned the red jersey through to the end. Stages 16-18 held much drama though as fans seemed to be upset that Jumbo Visma wasn’t putting their team in full support of Sepp Kuss. Instead, Jonas and Primoz both took off in different stages and got their own stage wins, leaving Sepp behind although he continued to remain the top GC rider despite the lack of team support. People pointed out how much Sepp had helped both riders in the past and felt that it was selfish of these two riders to not repay Sepp for all he had done.

I’m new to cycling so I’m not going to pretend I know all that there is to making team decisions. I will say I’m a big Sepp Kuss fan as he is an American rider and all around seems like a genuinely good guy. But I also really enjoyed following Jonas throughout the Tour and appreciate his humility and am excited to follow Primoz more as his grit is inspiring.

In Stage 18 Jumbo Visma appeared to make it known that they were in full support of Sepp keeping the jersey as both Primoz and Jonas switched to more supportive roles throughout the stage. Many people were excited to see this happen but still expressed confusion over why Jumbo Visma appeared to have any questioning at all during the earlier stages.

To which I say, welcome to the grey, everyone.

I know a life of black and white and absolutes can be appealing. The romanticism of everyone coming behind the underdog and the good people coming out on top leaves us feeling good. But, the reality is that things are usually much more grey than that.

In the end, Primoz and Jonas helped support Kuss. And, in my opinion, it’s okay if they did that but also still had a desire to win it themselves, too. They are competitors at the top level, after all, I don’t see that switch being something you can so easily turn off. Some people thought some of Primoz’s interviews made it appear as though he was doing as his team decided but he didn’t necessarily agree with it.

I think that’s reality.

I agree Sepp deserved the win. I’ve just recently joined the cycling world but have grown to enjoy and appreciate Sepp’s contributions to the team as well as his personality as a whole. But I don’t like Primoz or Jonas any less because they seemed to fight for the top spot themselves for a while.

I get the appeal and romanticism of Jonas and Primoz stepping aside immediately and leading Kuss to a win. But, I don’t think the reality is any less admirable or beautiful. The reality of how all of this played out is much more depictive of real life, too.

Things are never black and white. When they are, we are usually ignoring, suppressing, or unaware of additional aspects of the situation. Grey is where things reside. Contradictions are present more often than we realize. But, this grey doesn’t have to be any less beautiful. The complexity of things is where I see much beauty.