Now entering its sixth season the Russian Katusha Team will once again be led by Spanish super climber Joaquim Rodriguez and his lieutenant Daniel Moreno. Also known as Purito, the story behind which will be told far too many times throughout the season, Rodriguez has become one of the most consistently successful riders in the peloton, topping the UCI World rankings in three of the past four seasons. His four seasons as a Katusha rider have been the best of Rodriguez’s career; in that time he has twice won Il Lombardia, finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours while also winning 10 Grand Tour stages. 2014 could well be the year that Rodriguez finally wins a Grand Tour as he targets success at a largely climber friendly Giro d’Italia. Purito’s proven ability to peak in the final week and his diminutive frame are ideal for a Giro with a lot of steep climbs in the last few stages. He will have to overcome what looks to be a strong field and a 44.6km ITT on stage 12, the race against the clock has ever been Rodriguez’s Achilles heel. Rodriguez remains an explosive climber a potential winner in any of the hilly one-day races; he would love to reach the giro having won Liege-Bastogne-Liege. As has often been the case, Moreno spent much of 2013 sacrificing his own ambitions to work for Rodriguez, but he still found time to achieve some successes of his own. He won La Fleche Wallonne with a perfectly timed attack near the top of the Mur de Huy, while also winning two stages in the Vuelta, while also being the race leader for a day. Moreno possesses the same strengths as Rodriguez and Katusha have indicated that they hope to have them race apart more often in 2014, which should make the team competitive in even more races. The Slovenian Simon Spilak is another fine GC option, a good climber and a better time trialist that either of the Spaniards, Spilak enjoyed the most consistent year of his career in 2013. Spilak took two good wins in hilly one-day races, the 1.1 GP Miguel Indurain and the 1.HC Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt. He was 6th overall in Paris-Nice (having been 4th in 2012), 4th overall in the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco and a stage winner and 2nd overall at the Tour de Romandie. That stage win came on a day of foul weather, where Spilak had been one of the chief animators, at the end the race came down to a sprint between himself and Chris Froome. It will be interesting to see what opportunities Spilak will have in 2014; I certainly think he merits a larger role and inclusion in a Grand Tour. Those GC riders will be offered strong support, with the core support riders likely to be selected from Giampaolo Caruso and Alberto Losada, alongside Russians Vladimir Gusev, Pavel Brutt, Dmitriy Kozonchuk and Eduard Vorganov.
Norwegian sprinter Alexander Kristoff is a powerful sprinter and a good climber who offers the team’s greatest stage win threat. Last season he took his first win on the World Tour with a stage win at the Tour de Suisse, on a tough uphill sprint where he finished ahead of Peter Sagan and Arnaud Demare. Kristoff is built for the tougher races, adept on the small hills and strong enough to outlast most other fast men, as he showed with 4th and 9th place finishes in Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix respectively. While Kristoff may lack the outright speed of the elite sprinters, he can certainly be competitive with them, and earned many plaudits for finishing 6th or better six times during the 2013 Tour de France, despite his lack of team support. Now having proven himself, Kristoff is set to return to the Tour as a team leader, with dedicated support riders and with stage wins and the Green Jersey very much in his sights. Katusha haven’t had to use a proper sprint train, but they do have a number of other fast finishers who can be developed in that role, as well as powerful domestiques who can help control a break. Russian sprinter Aleksandr Porsev, German Rudiger Selig and the promising 22 year old Austrian Marco Haller are all potential stage winners but will likely find themselves deployed in support of Kristoff and Alexey Tsatevich for much of the season. Angel Vicioso is another veteran domestique and useful opportunistic sprinter, while he lacks the speed to compete in a conventional bunch sprint, his climbing allows him to contest those tougher to get to finishes. Italian Luca Paolini, 37 in three day’s time, is an experienced classics rider and remains a good opportunistic sprinter. He returned to winning ways in 2013, with victory in the traditional Belgian season opener, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. He followed that by taking the Maglia Rosa when winning the 3rd stage of the Giro, and holding the jersey for four days.
The Russian element
Although the team was set up and funded by the Russian Global Cycling Project, and in turn the big businesses behind that foundation, many of the team’s biggest results have come from foreign riders. These star names like Rodriguez, Moreno, Kristoff, Paolini and Filippo Pozzato (now of Lampre-Merida) have brought international recognition to the team, but the long term aim is to develop Russian riders who can do the same. I have already mentioned a number of the Russian riders on the team, but there are plenty more and some of them have considerable potential. Sergei Chernetckii, 23, is a strong GC contender for the future and may be the most promising of those Russian riders. Alexey Tsatevich is a promising sprinter, his sleight build favours him on the climbs and makes him an ideal opportunist, however he has shown he has enough speed to be competitive in the bunch sprints as well. Iurii Trofimov, 29, is another explosive climber and an experienced domestique as well as a capable stage winner. Trofimov finished 13th overall in last season’s Giro and must be pushing hard for a larger role in 2014, while Petr Ignatenko, 26, and Egor Silin, 25, are both improving climbers who will get their own chances further down the line. Anton Vorobyev was the u23 World ITT Champion in 2012 and is a promising talent who could surprise some established names against the clock in 2014. While his neo-pro season was cut short in April, he had already finished 2nd in two short ITTs, losing out to Sylvain Chavanel and Adriano Malori, both fine time trialists. Maxim Belkov is a powerful domestique and makes for a good breakaway option as he demonstrated when winning from a break in the 2013 Giro d’Italia. Alexander Kolobnev is a punchier rider who can contend for the hilly one-day races and has some good results in the Ardennes Classics. Russian Champion, Vladimir Isaychev is a powerful rider who will mainly serve as a workhorse domestique and could well support Kristoff in the Tour de France.
2014 outlook
Katusha have assembled a talented squad and are capable of succeeding on many fronts throughout 2014. With Rodriguez they have a legitimate contender for the Giro d’Italia and could finally win their first Grand Tour, as well as contending for some of the most prestigious one-day races around. Kristoff looks ready to take the next step in his development, more wins, a possible Grand Tour stage win and contending at the Classics are all within reach.
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