Alexander Kristoff

Early career

At six, he moved from Oslo to Stavanger. His stepfather got him interested in cycling rather than football. He started riding for Stavanger SK. At 16 he won the Norwegian youth championship, and finished fourth in the Youth Olympics. He turned professional in 2006 for Glud & Marstrand–Horsens. In 2007, he became Norwegian road champion at 19, beating Thor Hushovd in a sprint of four riders.

Katusha (2012–)

He won a bronze medal in the road race at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

2014 season

In 2014 Kristoff won Milan–San Remo beating Fabian Cancellara in the sprint. Later the same year Kristoff claimed two stage wins in the Tour the France making him runner-up behind Peter Sagan in the points classification. Later this season Kristoff took another victory when he claimed the first place in the Vattenfall Cyclassics, after a previous win on German soil in May at the Eschborn-Frankfurt – Rund um den Finanzplatz. In total Kristoff took 14 victories in the 2014 season ranking him eighth in points on the 2014 UCI World Tour season standings.

2015 season

In 2015, Kristoff had a very good start to his campaign by getting three stage victories on the Tour of Qatar, grabbing the points classification jersey in the process. He celebrated another stage victory soon afterward at the Tour of Oman. On 1 March, he was outsprinted by Mark Cavendish and finished in second position at Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne. He earned another sprint victory at Paris–Nice, while he was preparing himself for Milan–San Remo. He was looking for a repeat victory at that race, but John Degenkolb had the better of him in the sprint finish and he settled for a still prestigious second position. Still in the month of March, he went on to finish just shy of the podium in E3 Harelbeke, taking fourth place. He then participated in the Three Days of De Panne, where he was part of a six-man breakaway on the first stage and won the sprint of the small group, while being lead-out by his teammate Sven Erik Bystrøm. He repeated the next day, this time using a bunch sprint to propel himself to victory. Kristoff also won stage 3a, a bunch sprint where he very slightly edged André Greipel by 0.0003 seconds. With the bonus seconds awarded to him, he won the general classification too after finishing third on stage 3b, a short individual time trial.

In April, Kristoff won the cobbled monument Tour of Flanders, the main goal of his spring season. With some 30 kilometres (19 miles) remaining, Niki Terpstra attacked and only Kristoff went with him. The duo got a lead of 30 seconds with the remains of the lead group unable to catch them. Kristoff beat Terpstra in the two-man sprint, to take his biggest win up to that point. Three days later Kristoff won the sprinters semi-classic Scheldeprijs, becoming the first rider to win the Three Days of De Panne, the Tour of Flanders and the Scheldeprijs in the same season. Kristoff came in tenth at Paris–Roubaix, then took a break from racing. He came back at the Tour of Norway, where he finished eighth overall while taking two stage successes. Shortly after, he participated in the Tour des Fjords where he dominated the sprints again by amassing three stage victories, the points classification jersey and a ninth overall position. He also won the seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse by a whisker over Peter Sagan. Sagan got out of Kristoff's slipstream to try to out-sprint him in the closing stages, but to no avail.

2016 season

In 2016, he started his season with a hat-trick of stage wins at the flat Tour of Qatar, finishing in second position in the overall classification to Mark Cavendish.

Classics results timeline

DNF = Did not finish
— = Did not compete