US rider Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) carried a solo lead after the summit of Col de Sarenne and looked set for his second career victory at the Tour de France when disaster struck on Saturday on stage 20.
The Colorado rider crashed twice in the final 8km and then went into chase mode to close a quickly-forming gap to Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).
Kuss first crashed into a high curb as he exited a dark tunnel with with 7.1km to go. Then only 2km later on, he lost control on his bike on a technical descent on the left-hand side of the road, a safety net keeping him from plummeting over the side of the mountain road.
Carapaz rocketed by and opened a 10-second gap right away, as the US rider remounted and tried to recover. The two raced on towards the finish line in Alpe d'Huez, Kuss not looking physically worse for the crashes other than some cuts on his arm and legs, but he unable to close down Carapaz, who won the stage.
The Ecuadorian would raise his arms for a solo victory, and behind Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) then accelerated past the US rider, to add more misery to Kuss' physical pain.
In the end, Kuss held on to third place on the penultimate day. He was fourth to the top of Alpe d'Huez the day before.
His valiant effort on a second day of aggressive riding in the Alps did move him up two spots on GC to 13th overall, giving him a positive boost at the top rider on the Visma team, though 1:02:03 behind race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). Visma's GC contender Jonas Vingagaard, who crashed out of the Tour on stage 15.
Kuss was the last US rider to win a stage at the Tour de France, doing so five years ago in Andorra.
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