An ominous warning delivered with a smile. Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) completed a hat-trick of stage wins on the final leg of the Tour of Qatar to match his haul from 2015, and then decreed afterwards that his week in the desert had been even better than 12 months ago.
On arriving on the cobbles following his successful Gulf campaign last Spring, Kristoff could scarcely stop winning, his period of aristeia only halted at Paris-Roubaix. One can never step in the same river twice, of course, but the Norwegian will have been encouraged by early signals from the Tour of Qatar, his first race of the season.
“My results in Qatar are even better than last year, even if I did a worse time trial,” Kristoff said. “The team did such a good job. Without them I would never have been able to win these stages because every day I had a very good lead-out.”
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Indeed, had it not been for that surprisingly low-key showing in the Lusail time trial, where he admitted that his power output was around 10 watts down from the corresponding stage last year, Kristoff may well have claimed final overall victory to boot. As it was, he eventually placed second, just five seconds behind eventual winner Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data).
Kristoff was soundly beaten by Cavendish at Al Khor on the opening day, but he has had the upper hand in their encounters since. The windswept, slightly uphill finish at Qatar University on stage 2 clearly favoured a rider of Kristoff’s power and he duly delivered by just edging out the Manxman.
At Madinat Al Shamal on stage 4, meanwhile, the sheer intensity of Katusha’s lead-out – allied to Cavendish’s isolation in the winning echelon – meant that the Manxman had little chance of getting back on terms with Kristoff in the sprint.
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