Kristoff ready to face down all comers in Spring Classics

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Alexander Kristoff is on a fine run of form(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

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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 Degenkolb, 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.

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.

The uncertainty would last until the UCI's Licence Commission decided not to impose a ban, on the day Kristoff won stage 2 in Doha. Their reason was that Paolini's cocaine positive wasn't deemed to be for performance-enhancing purposes. But Vorganov's case still goes down as the eighth Katusha doping case since it was formed in 2009 and the first since the team turned over its new leaf. Talk about timing.

"I don't know whether he did it on purpose but he had to follow the rules and the rules are that this is not allowed. When you're taking it he is putting everybody in a bad place, risking many guys' seasons." We ask Kristoff about grey areas, and whether he's a letter or spirit of the law type of rider. "Caffeine is allowed now and I use that but it's in coffee," he says. "You can say that's a grey area and I would say I am in that grey area."

"I have not read it so carefully this year," he admits when we ask if he had flicked through it. "I read it last year and they said it was more or less the same this year. But there are rules for everything. For instance we are not allowed to drink alcohol except if the managers allow you to take a bottle of wine or something because we had an incident last year where guys from our team were drinking too much," he adds, piquing our interest, but refusing to elaborate. In December 2015, however, Katusha's doctor, Massimo Besnati, warned of a trend among young riders to mix sleeping pills and alcohol. "They drink a lot," Besnati told La Gazzetta dello Sport. Not for the first time or probably the last, Kristoff's reputation as a 'clean' rider had been leant upon for the benefit of the team. His acceptance of that responsibility demonstrates that his value to the team stretches beyond his proficiency at winning bike races.

But of course, winning bike races is what Kristoff does best. Last season they came by the bucketload. He topped the winners' list with 20 victories, four more than any other WorldTour rider, but equally as impressive was his consistency through the year. He took at least one win from every stage race he did in 2015, apart from the Tour de France where he had a slight dip in form. He managed to win about once every four race days; his real purple patch came in nine days between March 31 and April 8, when he won six times. And in the middle of that stretch, victory number 10 for the year: the Tour of Flanders, the brightest and the best for the strength and élan that he demonstrated. Other notable wins include three stages and the GC at the Three Days of De Panne, Scheldeprijs, and the GP Plouay. "Perhaps I can smell the finish line," Kristoff tells us.

A stellar season then. But it has not always been like this. Unlike such contemporaries as John Degenkolb, Peter Sagan and Sep Vanmarcke, who were marked out as potential champions since their first year as professionals, Kristoff arrived with nothing like the same hype. Sure, his results with the Maxbo-Bianchi Continental team were solid and yes, he caused a stir by winning the Norwegian road race title aged 19 against Thor Hushovd. But in general, in his first four years he always seemed to be at the edge of frame in finish line photos, just a few metres back and out of focus.

The American team's loss was Katusha's gain. While 2012 only yielded two victories, stage 3a at De Panne – something of a Kristoff speciality as he's won it three times now – and a Tour of Denmark stage, the step up in the quality of the podiums and top place finishes was palpable. That was thanks in part to the team's key sprinter Denis Galimzyanov failing an EPO test that April, giving Kristoff more opportunity. At the Olympic Road Race he took bronze in the bunch sprint finish behind Alexandre Vinokourov and Rigoberto Urán. And if there was a watershed moment in his career, this was it. It convinced Kristoff and his stepfather and coach Stein Ørn that they were on the right path.

During the following season, 2013, his run of results in the Classics was strong. In 11 race days between Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix, he was never out of the top 20 and was top-10 in the three Monuments. The final step came when he won Milan-Sanremo the following spring. Kristoff, the rider with the wonky helmet and the enormous thighs, was now a Monument winner and had succeeded where the many others in his bracket – Degenkolb, Sagan, Van Avermaet, Boasson Hagen and Vanmarcke – had so far failed.

Chris Froome rode a shabby old mountain bike on the red dirt paths in the Rift Valley and Ivan Basso crested the Stelvio aged eight in the slipstream of his father. Every top rider has a pleasant, homely foundation story. Alexander Kristoff's is just as humble and memorable. When he was 13 or 14, local organisers bent rules so that he could race with veterans – a privilege usually reserved for 16-year-olds. "The organisers said it was okay because I was quite good at that age," he remembers. "I raced against the best amateurs and veterans – old people who were really fighting hard for victory. The races were long, maybe 120km, when the maximum I should have been doing was about 50km.

After he won two Tour stages in 2014 we were told Kristoff used to prepare for races with mental visualisation, tasking himself to imagine how the race might unfold. He was a conscientious student of racing, too, scouring videos for the tics and flaws of rivals. But as his stature has grown and the demands upon his time have mushroomed, that diligence has melted away. Now Kristoff's objective is to switch off from cut and thrust of the day job as quickly as possible.

Talk to Kristoff for long and the picture emerges of someone who is quite disengaged from the sport. The head of his Belgian fanclub, Dirk Biliau, told us that Kristoff reminded him of the 1985 Flanders and 1987 Roubaix winner, Eric Vandaerarden. "Who?" says Kristoff. "Never heard of him. That was before I was born. I know who Eddy Merckx was and some of the biggest guys but I don't really pay attention."

We'll admit to meeting Kristoff with preconceived ideas of who we might find. The asceticism and taste for suffering squares well with his reputation for being a rider who has worked steadily towards the top of the tree. In public, Kristoff is the model modern pro: modest, sanguine, positive and focused. But it's the other side of Kristoff - the blokey traits and an earthy take-it-or-leave-it philosophy - that's more likeable. Throughout the interview, riders and staff had quietly and politely interrupted the interview to greet their leader. As they came over, he half rose on those teak-like thighs to greet them and it was clear he was happy to see them, yet was trapped by obligation. But he quickly returned to listen earnestly to the next question.

Kristoff's more accessible than his team-mate Ilnur Zakarin and more bankable than Joaquim Rodríguez. He is also, at the age of 28, coming to the zenith of his powers as a professional cyclist. That alone makes Katusha reliant on him - with 40 wins last year, the team were third in the win list, but half their total came from Kristoff. However, they also need his help to distance themselves from the riders who have tested positive while on their books. As Katusha try to unscramble the mess of the fresh start Vorganov has left them with, at least they know they can rely on Alexander Kristoff, whatever role they deploy him in: surgical race winner or likeable, approachable team ambassador.

Sam started as a trainee reporter on daily newspapers in the UK before moving to South Africa where he contributed to national cycling magazine Ride for three years. After moving back to the UK he joined Procycling as a staff writer in November 2010.