How to beat Kristoff

He’ll go in the breakaways, he’ll win bunch sprints, he’ll take 300km classics or morning split stages. Alexander Kristoff is a problem for everyone else how to beat him in Paris-Roubaix is the question worrying many team managers keen to salvage something from the final cobbled classic.

What a week for Kristoff: three stage wins in the three days of De Panne, there were two bunch sprint wins but he also won from a breakaway move too, a confidence booster ahead of his triumph last Sunday. His third place in the time trial stage was impressive, beaten but what if this was the real clue to his performance in De Ronde? He had the power to beat everyone over 20 minutes and when Niki Terpstra went clear over the Hotond only Kristoff could follow, hardly the mark of a sprinter trying to hang on for the win.

It’s this force that’s ominous for next Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix where rivals normally hope to “break” a sprinter over the repeated 2-3 minute cobbled efforts. Indeed Kristoff said he found Paris-Nice slow – you’ll remember the lack of crosswinds saw the peloton amble along – and as a consequence he’s still building form. He’s disarmingly direct in press conferences and relishes the status of being number one when others often try to play down their chances.

For Paris-Roubaix the goal for others is clear, Kristoff has to be isolated and then distanced. The Katusha team are strong but not the best, the team has collection of faceless workhorses like Alexander Porsev and Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, riders who are noted for the strength yet have no profile in the media. Unlike half of Etixx-Quick Step they’re unlikely to be there in the final of a race and once Kristoff is alone he’s vulnerable. Rivals will start attacking and others will expect him to chase given his new found status, he’s The Rider others will fear, the one others base their tactics on.

Just don’t tune in for the last five minutes to watch Kristoff win in Roubaix. There’s every chance he’s left for dust without any rival playing a tactical card: he finished De Ronde with metal wire in his tire and a Paris-Roubaix is a puncture fest, a little bit of “unluck” and he’s out. It’s also a race he’s struggled with, with three DNF’s, a 57th and his best is a ninth place in 2013.

After the classics Kristoff becomes a problem for others, take the Tour de France. Marcel Kittel has become the king of the sprints but there’s a view that he’s at his best in the first week and the fatigue over dragging his 85kg carcass over a mountain range is so much that he fades the longer the race goes on. As Daniel Friebe as explained in The Cycling Podcast riders like Mark Cavendish have been waiting to exploit this as they feel they don’t fade as fast but Kristoff was the king of the second week sprints last July with victory in Stage 12 and Stage 15.

Longer term Kristoff seems ideal for repeated classics success. Sanremo last year, Flanders this year and what about 2015? Yet so often it’s said someone will dominate the sport for years only to fade. He’s having a great season but things can go wrong at any time. There are obvious things like an injury or crash. To counter this there’s also the notion that he wasn’t far off becoming Olympic champion, that late move from Alexander Vinokourov in 2012 saw Kristoff sprinting for third place. He won and with hindsight an obvious result and also an alarm bell for his rivals who think a hilly course is too much for him.

Success doesn’t breed success in cycling. Just ask Peter Sagan who stands as a good example of a rider who has gone from promise to disappointment. It’s still a matter of nuance than record for the Slovak as he’s bound to win big sometime. Yet he’s now on the defensive having to justify why he lost races while being paid millions, energy sapping in press conferences alone and the prompt for caution and negative feedback. Sagan might seem like he’s got the superstar lifestyle but it was only a couple of years ago that he was living home and his mother was packing rosaries into his luggage for races to bring him good fortune. Money and pressure change everything fast.

Kristoff seems a lot more grounded but it takes plenty to resist the temptations. He’s got a family life in Norway and stays all year in Stavanger. Not for him the Monaco lifestyle, he’s got a unit around him including his stepfather Stein Ørn, a cardiologist who is also his coach. Then again part of the job means fulfilling duties and meeting expectations, prepping for a race now means press conferences, photo shoots and saying the same thing eight times in eight TV interviews. Norway doesn’t have many sports stars and in times past the examples of Thor Hushovd and Edvald Boasson Hagen are instructive, Hushovd was versatile for a decade but didn’t dominate although there were other reasons for that, notably his reputation as a clean rider in a messy era.

Boasson Hagen seemed able to win everything but hasn’t and makes a useful case study alongside Sagan. You can see Sagan tempted by the highlife but “EBH” has a quieter character, he too prefers life in Norway. Just like Kristoff he rode for the same teams, Joker and Maxbo-Bianchi, in fact they were team mates in 2007 and got promising placings here and there. Boasson Hagen looked like a raw talent, sprinting uphill to wins with a coating of puppy fat while the U-23 Kristoff looked like a ringer with the lean muscles of a old pro. Kristoff was solid with BMC Racing, his only win with BMC was the Norwegian nationals but he came close elsewhere. Monday’s L’Equipe says the team wanted him to move to southern Europe but he said no and the implication is this encouraged him to join Katusha.

Conclusion

There have been a few “is Kristoff unbeatable” questions, if Kristoff was invincible then the sport wouldn’t be worth watching.

Perhaps you would not bet against him for Wednesday’s Scheldeprijs but Paris-Roubaix though is another matter, the most risky race of the year. Even if he can keep luck on his side Kristoff is a strong pick given he’s is more than a lurking threat for the sprint, he can ride away from everyone else with 30km to go. Many team managers will be sitting down this week to analyse Kristoff’s performance last Sunday to search for weak points and some will plan their team tactics as a function of the Norwegian. Regardless of Sunday he’s bound to be a force in the Tour de France and is another name to add to the list for the World Championships. Beyond this we’ll see, Kristoff’s having a great season but history suggests replicating this success all over again is going to be harder. Others might fret about how to beat him but history suggests time and pressure will get the better of him. Want to beat Kristoff? Wait.