American Sepp Kuss leads Spanish Vuelta before decisive day. Dainese wins 19th stage after sprint

ÍSCAR, Spain — Sepp Kuss is one day's competitive racing away from becoming the first American man to win a Grand Tour title in a decade after he had no problem keeping the overall lead of the Spanish Vuelta on Friday.

Kuss and his Jumbo-Visma teammates Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic have a comfortable hold on the top three spots in the general classification and are eyeing a sweep of the podium in Madrid, where the three-week race ends on Sunday.

Saturday’s 208-kilometer (129-mile) ride from Manzanares El Real to Guadarrama in hilly country outside the capital is the race’s longest stage and will effectively decide its winner. Racing custom dictates that contenders for the title respect the overall times heading into Sunday’s final and mostly ceremonial stage in Madrid.

The 25-year-old Alberto Dainese beat Filippo Ganna to the finish line Friday in the flat 177-kilometer (110-mile) 19th stage from La Bañeza to Íscar in northwestern Spain. It was his third win at a Grand Tour after winning two stages at the Giro d’Italia this year and last.

Kuss, 29, had a stage win at the Tour de France two seasons ago and began the Vuelta as a support rider for Roglic and Vingegaard. But he took the lead on the eighth stage and has yet to relinquish it. The last American man to win a Grand Tour event, which also includes the Tour and Giro, was Chris Horner at the Vuelta since 2013.

Both Vingegaard, the two-time Tour champion, and Roglic, who has won the Vuelta three times, had closed the gap on Kuss until Thursday when they honored his lead over a mountainous 18th stage.

Kuss leads Vingegaard by 17 seconds and Roglic by just over a minute. The rest of the field is well behind Roglic, so it would be an enormous surprise if the title does not go to a member of the dominant Dutch team. The question is whether Vingegaard and Roglic will try to overtake their teammate during the stage that includes 10 category-three climbs.

Kuss, for his part, said he was calm.

“I will sleep well tonight because, while with the usual tension, today was a lot calmer than those recent mountain stages,” Kuss said. “Tomorrow we will face the stage with confidence because we have a team made for all terrains.”

The nearest chasers to the Jumbo-Visma trio are Spaniards Juan Ayuso, Mikel Landa, and Enric Mas, all between 4:00 and 4:30 off Kuss' pace.