Sometimes it’s not the speed and drama of the peloton that impresses us but its unspoken principle of fairness. If only real life was the same…
At the end of the 2003 film Lost In Translation, Bill Murray’s ageing film star whispers something into the ear of Scarlett Johansson’s neglected newly-wed before getting into a taxi to the airport. The two have shared a few platonic days while staying at the same Tokyo hotel and the secret whisper is an enigmatic ending to their time together.
No one – not the stars nor the director and screenwriter Sofia Coppola – have ever revealed what was said.
The scene came to mind during Stage 17 of this year’s Vuelta, which finished at the top of the Angliru. What exactly did Sepp Kuss – wearing the race leader’s jersey – say on the radio as his two Jumbo-Visma teammates, Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič, disappeared into the mist, seemingly taking his dream of GC glory with them?
As the pair slipped into the sepulchral gloom, Vingegaard briefly looked back over his shoulder at Kuss, his face betraying a discomfort that had more to do with the moral burden he carried than it did the gradient of the mountain. Should he hold out a figurative hand to a teammate who had served him so loyally in the past? Or should he stay on Roglič’s wheel and try to take the red jersey from Kuss? Scarlett Johansson surely felt a similar existential angst as she watched Bill Murray disappear into the Tokyo traffic.
There was no need for them to jettison Kuss. All three were minutes ahead of the nearest challenger on GC and the finish line was within touching distance. On a deeper, ethical level, Kuss had surely earned their support having previously sacrificed himself for both in his role as super-domestique, most notably at this year’s Giro (Roglič) and Tour (Vingegaard).
What had Kuss said on the radio? If a tweet by the team was to be believed, it was, ‘Go guys!’ Yet after the race Jumbo-Visma DS Grischa Niermann revealed, ‘We couldn’t hear Sepp and we couldn’t see the TV pictures.’
Like most viewers, I sympathised with Kuss, but my reasons were more personal. I was watching the Angliru stage after a morning spent being mentored by a colleague at the cycling charity I occasionally work for. For the past year I’ve been training as a tutor – the person who teaches the teachers – and I’d just been assessed on my debut performance.
Afterwards, I cycled home unde
