Dane Jonas Vingegaard suffered a blow to his hopes of a third straight Tour de France title after U.S. rider Sepp Kuss was ruled out of the race due to COVID-19, their Visma-Lease a Bike team announced Tuesday.

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Climber Kuss, 29, won last year's Vuelta a España and has been replaced in the outfit by Dutch rider Bart Lemmen.

"This is, of course, very hard for Sepp in the first place," Visma's sporting director Merijn Zeeman said in a team statement. His contribution is always very important in the team, but then, of course, he has to be completely fit.

"Unfortunately, we had to conclude together today that this is insufficiently the case, after COVID. He now needs to recover properly and will therefore not start.

"Fortunately, we have a good replacement ready with Bart Lemmen."

Vingegaard likely is to battle with fellow two-time winner in Slovenian Tadej Pogacar for the overall title.

The Tour begins in Florence, Italy, on Saturday and will end in Nice on July 21.

How To Watch Tour de France 2024 In The United States 

A live broadcast of the 2024 Tour de France will be available on Peacock for those watching from the United States. 

Peacock is the exclusive home of the event in the United States through 2029, with start-to-finish coverage of every stage, though select stages also will air on NBC.

How To Watch Tour de France 2024 In Canada 

FloBikes will provide a live broadcast for Canadian audiences.

Viewers in Canada will be able to watch all 21 stages of the Tour de France 2024 live on FloBikes and the FloSports app.

FloBikes also will provide updates, highlights and behind-the-scenes coverage throughout the entire event for all Flo subscribers. 

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