Kristoff: Gaviria is faster so I'll work for him

Towards the end of last season, when Fernando Gaviria was announced as a UAE Team Emirates rider, Alexander Kristoff came out and said he hoped his paymasters didn't see him as simply as a lead-out man for the Colombian, otherwise he'd be a rather expensive support rider. With the new season underway, and with a customary win at the Tour of Oman in the bag, Kristoff appears resigned to working for Gaviria in bunch sprints, but has staked his own quiet claim to leadership in the spring classics.

Kristoff opened his season at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana last week and won the opening stage in Oman on Saturday, while Gaviria has started in South America, winning a stage at the Vuelta a San Juan but abandoning the Tour Colombia through illness.

The pair, however, are set to race together for the first time at the UAE Tour later this month, and they'll combine over the course of the one-day races in the spring, and then at the Tour de France in July.

ADVERTISEMENT

Even after his win in a pan-flat tailwind sprint in Oman, Kristoff is happy to admit Gaviria has the edge when it comes to pure speed, and seems to have accepted his position lower down the hierarchy.

"I won't have the same amount of chances to win sprints. I took one chance last year [at the Tour] so I showed I can still perform in the sprint, but he performs more often than me," Kristoff said in Oman.

"I get more 5th places than victories, and maybe he gets more victories than 5th places, so the team had to decide. They want to win races, of course, and we have to work together for this aim of the team. That's life.

Winning start in Oman

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com