No matter how you crunch Alexander Kristoff’s numbers, it makes for an imposing batting average. The Katusha rider has had a total of eleven race days so far in 2016 and he has already won five races. Or, to put it another way, he has won five out of the six bunch sprints he has contested this season.
Kristoff’s stock has risen year-on-year during his time at Katusha. He won just two races – and an Olympic bronze medal – in his first season in 2012, then six the following year, before his figures spiked dramatically in 2014, when he clocked up 14 victories. Kristoff is now already a quarter of the way to matching his 2015 haul of 20 victories, after he powered to victory on the final stage of the Tour of Oman at Matrah Corniche on Sunday, to claim his second win of the race.
“If it was a few years ago, then if I did nothing the rest of the season I would still have been happy, but now after the last two years, I want a little bit more from the bigger races also,” Kristoff said afterwards of the returns from a Gulf campaign that also saw him claim a hat-trick of wins at the Tour of Qatar.
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“It gives me confidence and it also gives the team confidence that we can win races. Of course, the Classics are a bit different, they’re harder and longer, but it’s still many of the same guys racing there, so when you can beat them here you can also beat them there.”
Kristoff arrived in Qatar two weeks ago fearing that he would even be able to compete as Katusha faced a possible collective ban after Eduard Vorganov became the team’s second positive doping case in the past twelve months. The UCI Disciplinary Commission, however, opted not to impose a sanction because Luca Paolini’s case was deemed to be a social drug problem rather than a sporting case, and the team has been strikingly to the fore ever since.
Taking on Kittel and Cavendish, thinking of the tougher Classics
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