Nathan Haas signs for Katusha-Alpecin

Nathan Haas will ride for Katusha-Alpecin in 2018 after signing a two-year deal with the team. The Australian advanced into a leadership role during his two seasons at Dimension Data and capped a fine 2017 spring campaign by placing 4th at Amstel Gold Race. At 28 years of age, Haas will look to continue that progression in the colours of Katusha.

"It really is my time to graduate into one of the biggest teams, and Katusha is exactly that for me," Haas told Cyclingnews. "They certainly seem to have a lot of faith in my ability and they want to help me convert a ridiculous amount of podiums and a ridiculous amount of top five finishes into big wins."

Haas has raced at WorldTour level since 2012, spending four years at Garmin-Sharp – now Cannondale-Drapac – before moving to Dimension Data ahead of the 2016 campaign. His consistent sequence of results over the last season and a half has netted Haas a sizeable haul of WorldTour points and elicited considerable interests from other teams, but it was Jose Azevedo and Katusha who proved most persuasive.

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At Garmin, Haas rode predominantly in the service of others, while at Dimension Data, he was one of a number of fast finishers with similar skill sets, alongside Edvald Boasson Hagen, Kristian Sbaragli and the emerging Ryan Gibbons. Katusha's lack of an established leader for races such as Amstel Gold Race and the Tour Down Under meant that there was an obvious vacancy for a rider like Haas.

"The nice thing talking to Jose Azevedo was that he had done his research on me and he knew the results I'd had and how I'd got them. They're obviously very observant and when he listed the race programme he had in mind for me it was more or less my wish list of races," Haas said of a spring schedule that is likely to start at the Tour Down Under and build towards Amstel Gold Race.

"It's exactly what I want for my career. I'm going to get enough rope to choke myself on, it's going to be up to me from here to convert it to the win. If I can't, at least I can say I had everything at my disposal to win the biggest races. If I can't, I'm fine with that, but I really feel going to this team is going to be the difference between where I keep finishing and actually crossing that line first.

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