It’s a long way geographically and time-wise from the 2018 Tour of Utah to the 2024 Volta ao Algarve, but this week, six years and 8,000 kilometres distant, two of the key protagonists of the fondly remembered American stage race crossed paths in Portugal once again.
While Sepp Kuss‘ past history needs little retelling, Keegan Swirbul – who finished seventh in Utah in 2018 as Kuss won the overall – is currently in his first full season with Portuguese team Efapel, and racing in the Volta ao Algarve.
After his signing for Efapel midway through 2023 was one of the few bright spots in a year beset by multiple illnesses and setbacks, the former Human Powered Health and Rally racer is currently pushing for a breakthrough season.
“We know he’s got some very promising results in his palmares, but last year he wasn’t able to show what he’s capable of doing because of getting sick just when he was coming into form,” Efapel team manager and owner José Azevedo told Cyclingnews in Lagoa at stage 2’s start of the Volta ao Algarve.
“So I signed him again for 2024, to see what he could do this time round.”
Currently resident in Vigo, Spain, just north of Portugal, where he raced with an amateur team for half of 2023, Azevedo said that he knows Swirbul’s manager well.
Once contact was established, all it needed was a quick glance at the 28-year-old American’s CV from WorldTour races like the Tour de Suisse, where he’s placed in the top 25 on mountain stages, for Azevedo to make him a late signing in 2023.
“Last year he signed for half a season, but honestly he had a lot of problems. He started racing the Vuelta Asturias, but then came down with a bacterial infection, so was out for three weeks,” Azevedo says.
“Then when he started to build his condition and was in a camp for the Volta a Portugal, he got COVID and this is why we re-signed him, to see his level – because last year with all the problems it was not possible.”
So far 2024 has not gone brilliantly for Swirbul, with a crash at the opening race in the Figueira Champions Classic and then again in the big late pile-up on stage 1 at the Algarve, but Azevedo is sure that in the future, he can show his full potential.
“I had a really good winter of preparation but these first few races things have not really gone my way,” Swirbul, sporting a sizable bandage on his left arm told Cyclingnews. “But it could be worse, I’m still here and I’ll keep fighting.”
Racing for a Portuguese team was certainly not something he…
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