Alexander Kristoff (Katusha)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) followed by John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) wins the Scheldeprijs(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) recons the Paris-Roubaix course(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) rides the Arenberg Forest(Image credit: Sirotti)
Alexander Kristoff has ended speculation surrounding his future by signing a contract extension with Katusha. The length of the contract has not been announced by the team but the Tour of Flanders winner will ride for at least one more season at the Russian World Tour squad.
“It is unbelievable how the team was going the last months,” Kristoff said in a team press release.
“They all worked so hard for me. The teammates trust me and I trust them. For the first time I could work from a sprinter’s train. Our newly arrived riders all proved to be the right choices. I had a contract till the end of this year but my hope was to be able to stay with this winning team. It didn’t take us so long to reach a new agreement. I am very happy.”
The news means that Katusha will continue to sponsor a WorldTour squad for at least one more year. Their current WorldTour licence expires at the end of 2015.
Kristoff,27, has enjoyed a stellar season so far with eleven wins, including the Tour of Flanders, three stages in the Tour of Qatar, a stage in Paris-Nice, three stages and the overall in the Three Days of De Panne and Scheldeprijs.
“Alexander is happy with the deal we made, but we are more than exited as well. We’ve built a strong relationship with him these last years and Alexander Kristoff proved to be the rider on which we can build further in the coming years,” said general manager Viacheslav Ekimov.
We can’t wait to see what we’ll be able to accomplish in the near and distant future. It was a pleasure as well to see that Alex’s victories were contagious to our other riders. In addition Sergei Chernetckii, Luca Paolini and Joaquim Rodriguez all won WorldTour races this season. We never had such a good spring as this one in 2015. It is the right moment to build further on the future of our team. Alexander Kristoff was the logical first rider to re-sign.”
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Kristoff will now take a rest after his Classics campaign before focusing on his next objective at the Tour de France.
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