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In 2015, Alexander Kristoff topped the race winners' list with 20 victories including a sensational win at the Tour of Flanders that was born of force and guile. In the absence of an injured John Degenkolv, he's the only rider from the new generation with a Monument to his name. And despite a rocky start to the year caused by a doping positive in his Katusha team, the Norwegian insists that he will be ready to face down the challenge from all-comers in the spring races.
"There is no rival I fear," he tells us on the eve of the Tour of Qatar.
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When we meet Alexander Kristoff at a transit hotel at Milan Malpensa Airport, it is not in easy circumstances. Just a few hours before, news had emerged that Eduard Vorganov, Kristoff's Katusha team-mate, had failed a dope test for meldonium, a substance added to WADA's list of banned drugs in January. As it was the squad's second doping infraction in a year, following Luca Paolini's in-competition positive for cocaine at the 2015 Tour, the team were facing a possible race ban of between 15 and 45 days.
It was the kind of news that gets interviews cancelled at very short notice and could cast a pall over a team preparing for the first race of the season, especially one that had set itself up at the beginning of the year with a brand refresh and a new attitude: this is the new Katusha – open, transparent, accessible. But as the team's Classics squad and staff filter into the Hotel Idea there is no sense of jeopardy ahead of the flight to Qatar. The lobby air is filled with happy greetings, laughter and man-hugs. It is the hubbub of a close-knit group getting ready for a long season. The bad news can wait.
We talk with the 28-year-old in a chilly, gloomy section of the lobby where the lights don't work, and we apologise for the lack of mood-lighting. "Don't worry, I'm only here to talk," he says. A brusque answer but fears the interview would be cancelled are lifted. That is until our water-testing offering – that given the circumstances, an interview is probably the last thing he wants to do – yields a thin smile from Kristoff. 'Yes, it is,' says the expression.
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