2023 Vuelta a España winner Sepp Kus will abandon the 2024 Criterium du Dauphine and will not start the final day of the race on Sunday.

Visma-Lease A Bike climber "feels not 100% at the recent stage," his team posted on Twitter earlier.

"With the preparation for the Tour de France in mind, I decided to take the necessary rest.

After a difficult week, Kus was lying in 7th place overall after Stage 30:55 with former teammate and race leader Primoš Logric (Bora・Hansgrohe).38 He lost more than 3 minutes in the mid-week time trial and steadily dropped time on 2 major mountain stages, Friday and Saturday.

Kuss's best performance so far at Critérium du Dauphiné was when he won the stage in 2020 and finished 10th overall.

Kuss is expected to play his usual key role for the Dutch team in the next Tour de France. But with the ongoing question mark on the participation of double defending champion and teammate Jonas Vingegaard, it does not see what the exact plan for Visma is - to lease a bike in the top stage race of cycling.

Visma-Lease A Bike has so far had three abandonment in the Critérium du Dauphiné, with both Dylan van Baarle and Steven Kruijswijk forced to quit as a result of injuries caused by the stage five mass crash.

On the plus side, Matteo Jorgenson will remain in the race along with his other 3 teammates, and the 2024 Paris-Nice winner is now down 1:02 to Logric.

Critérium du Dauphiné has seen a lot of abandonment as a result of the Stage 5 crash this year. 21 riders have been reported to have left before Stage 7 or during Stage 8. Astana-Kazakhstan's Harold Tejada, Ryan Gibbons (Lidl-Trek), Clement Champoussan (Arkea-B&B Hotels), Tom Paco (Intermarché-Wanty) and Mark Donovan (Q36.5) all failed to make it to the final start line of the 2024 race .