Visma | Lease a Bike Faces Challenges as Sepp Kuss Exits Tour of Oman Sick

Don’t look for Sepp Kuss in the Tour of Oman anymore. The GC contender from Visma | Lease a Bike did not start the third stage, leaving the Dutch team with only four riders left in the race.

Things were already looking bad for the American after he suddenly lost fifteen minutes in the overall classification during the second stage. A day later, he was no longer fit enough to race.

""Sepp is sick, which is why we didn’t take him to the start," explains Head of Racing Grischa Niermann on our website. "After we lost Axel Zingle and Owain Doull before we even rode a meter, unfortunately, we have one less rider now. There are many sick riders in the peloton with stomach and intestinal complaints. That was also the case for Kuss."

Zingle and Doull did make it to Oman, but the trouble began ahead of the Muscat Classic. The Brit crashed during training, and the Frenchman felt ill leading up to the race.

Niermann had GC ambitions with Kuss, but those will now be passed on to others. "Unfortunately, Tijmen Graat also lost a lot of time after getting a puncture at a bad moment yesterday. He will still have a free role, but the GC role now goes to Bart Lemmen. It’s not ideal, but that’s how it is," concludes the German.