Sepp Kuss started the Vuelta a Espana Saturday by claiming the race’s first King of the Mountain jersey.
During the Stage 1 time trial, Kuss was the fastest rider to the top of the Alto de Castillo, earning the right to wear the King of the Mountain jersey. Overall, Kuss had the 12th fastest time in the 7.1K stage: 8 minutes, 47 seconds.
Kuss’ teammate on Jumbo Visma, Primoz Roglic, ended up winning the stage in 8:32.
Quinn Simmons, meanwhile, placed 179th in the time trial.
Since then, however, Simmons has been moving up the leaderboard while Kuss and his team have been losing some ground.
After the fourth stage on Tuesday, Simmons had moved all the way up to 30th, helping his team, Trek Segafredo, move into fourth place in the team race.
After winning the time trial, Roglic slipped to 33rd after Stage 2, worked his way back into seventh after Stage 3 but slid again after Stage 4 to 36th.
Kuss is currently in 40th in the overall standings.
Team Jumbo Vismo, the race’s defending champion, was 10th out of the 23 teams competing after Tuesday’s stage. With 17 stages remaining, however, there is still a lot of racing left.
