This was always going to be an important season in the career of Alexander Kristoff. The 26 year old Norwegian sprinter is approaching what should be his peak years and was finally getting the opportunity to really test his limits. A Tour de France as a supported sprinter awaits in July, an opportunity earned after six top 6 finishes in last year’s race without support, but Kristoff has already struck gold this season with a terrific victory in Milan-San Remo, one of cycling’s Monuments and a career defining race to win.
Winning a Monument is never easy; they are longer and tougher than most other races and attract the strongest riders. In the case of La Classicissima di Primavera the difficulty comes from length, 294km, and in some seasons the awful weather, and that was definitely the case this year as that combination of distance and conditions whittled the peloton down to less than 30 riders by the time they reached the finish. Some terrific work from Luca Paolini brought Kristoff to the final corners, then he showed considerable poise by patiently waiting for the right moment to open up his sprint and finish it off with aplomb.
Kristoff’s excellent speed after such a difficult day in the saddle was the key to victory, he wasn’t the only fast finisher in that final group, but he was the only one with real speed in the legs at that stage of the race. A fact Kristoff acknowledged in a Katusha press release “A sprint after 300 km is different from one after 200 km. Normally I don’t lose much power even on a long stage. I saw Cavendish, who started his sprint, so I started mine, too. For the last 150 meters I had super power and was able to hold the others off. I was super happy when I saw I’d taken the win. It was the best moment in my life. Right now I’m enjoying this moment and I’m super happy. It’s the highlight of my career“.
Kristoff is a powerful rider with a fast finish but he isn’t a pure sprinter, he climbs well for such a big and powerful rider and combined with his obvious toughness that gives him a strong skill set for some of the biggest one-day races in the sport and means he will generally be in contention when the purer sprinters are not. He gained his first World Tour victory in 2013 with a stage win at the Tour de Suisse, the stage ended with a tough uphill sprint and Kristoff finished ahead of Peter Sagan and Arnaud Demare. Kristoff also gave notice of his ability to cope with the tougher races, following up an 8th place finish in a frozen, but truncated Milan-San Remo, with 4th and 9th place finishes in Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix respectively.
Regardless of what else he does this season, winning Milan-San Remo makes 2014 a successful year for Alexander Kristoff, but I suspect there is much more to come from the talented Norwegian.
The Week in Cycling 