Alexander Kristoff


Alexander Kristoff is a Norwegian former road bicycle racer, who last rode for UCI ProTeam and competed professionally from 2006 to 2025.
A sprinter and classics rider, Kristoff is the most successful Norwegian cyclist by number of wins, having taken almost 100 victories during his professional career. He has won four Tour de France stages, the 2014 Milan–San Remo and 2015 Tour of Flanders one-day races – as a result, becoming the only Norwegian rider, as of, to win a cycling monument – and has won medals in the road race at the Olympic Games, the UCI Road World Championships, and the European Road Cycling Championships. He also holds the record for most wins at the one-day races Eschborn–Frankfurt and the Grand Prix of Aargau Canton, and most stage wins at the Tour of Oman, the Tour of Norway, and the Arctic Race of Norway.

Career

Early career

At the age of 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 National Road Race Championships in the youth category, and finished fourth at the European Youth Summer Olympic Festival. He turned professional in 2006 with. In 2007, he won the Norwegian National Road Race Championships at 19, beating Thor Hushovd in a sprint of four riders. He won a stage at the Ringerike GP in both 2008 and 2009, and finished second to Kurt Asle Arvesen in the National Road Race Championships in 2009.

BMC Racing Team (2010–2011)

Kristoff joined the, a UCI Professional Continental team, for the 2010 season. In his first season with the team, his best result was a third-place finish at the Philadelphia International Championship. The following year, he took his first victory with the team, winning the Norwegian National Road Race Championships title for the second time, and entered his first Grand Tour – the Giro d'Italia, finishing third on stage eight.

Team Katusha (2012–2017)

2012–2013

For the 2012 season, Kristoff joined. His first victory with the team was stage 3a of the Three Days of De Panne, but lost the race lead during the final individual time trial stage; he ultimately won the race's points classification. He again competed in the Giro d'Italia, finishing second to Mark Cavendish on stage thirteen. Having finished third in the Norwegian National Road Race Championships in late June, Kristoff won a bronze medal in the road race at the London Olympics the following month, leading home the main field eight seconds down on race winner Alexander Vinokourov. Following the Olympics, Kristoff won a stage and the points classification at the Danmark Rundt, finished third overall and won the points classification at the World Ports Classic, and finished second behind solo winner Lars Bak at the Grand Prix de Fourmies.
The following year, Kristoff led home the chase group at March's Milan–San Remo, finishing in eighth place for his first top-ten cycling monument result. He again won stage 3a of the Three Days of De Panne, to take the race lead ahead of the final individual time trial stage where he fared better than in 2012, finishing sixth – but dropped behind Sylvain Chavanel in the general classification. He then placed fourth at the Tour of Flanders, again leading home a chasing group of riders, and also finished in the top ten places at Paris–Roubaix with ninth. He then won the opening two stages of Tour of Norway, before winning a third stage on the final day. At June's Tour de Suisse, Kristoff took his first victory at UCI World Tour level, winning the fifth stage into Leuggern from a bunch sprint. After losing out to Thor Hushovd in the Norwegian National Road Race Championships, Kristoff then competed in his first Tour de France, placing second on the opening stage. Following the Tour de France, Kristoff finished fourth overall at the Tour des Fjords, having won an individual stage, the team time trial – as part of – and the points classification. His final notable result of the year was a third-place finish at the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Germany, behind home riders John Degenkolb and André Greipel.

2014

Kristoff took his first win of 2014 at February's Tour of Oman, winning the second stage of the race. The following month, he became the first Norwegian rider to win a cycling monument, when he won Milan–San Remo in a sprint finish of some 25 riders. He again finished in the top five at the Tour of Flanders, with a fifth-place result, before winning the Eschborn–Frankfurt – Rund um den Finanzplatz one-day race in a sprint finish in Frankfurt. The latter result started a prolific month of May for Kristoff, as he won two stages and the points classification at the Tour of Norway, and then went on to win three stages, the general classification and the points classification at the Tour des Fjords.
Having earlier finished second on stages four and six, Kristoff took his first Grand Tour stage win with victory on stage twelve of July's Tour de France, prevailing in Saint-Étienne ahead of Peter Sagan and Arnaud Démare. He took another stage win on stage 15, beating Heinrich Haussler and Sagan in Nîmes, as he ultimately finished as runner-up in the points classification, some 150 points in arrears of Sagan. He then followed this up with second overall at the Arctic Race of Norway, along with two stage wins and the points classification, and a bunch sprint victory at the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg. He competed in the road race at the UCI Road World Championships for the first time since 2010, culminating in an eighth-place finish. He finished the season with fourteen victories, and an eighth-place finish in the final standings of the UCI World Tour.

2015

At his first start of the 2015 season, Kristoff won three stages at the Tour of Qatar, finishing third overall and he also won the points classification. He also won stages of the Tour of Oman and Paris–Nice, either side of a second-place finish to Mark Cavendish at Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne. He attempted to retain his Milan–San Remo title, but was outsprinted for the victory by John Degenkolb, and ultimately finished second. He then placed fourth at E3 Harelbeke, and ninth at Gent–Wevelgem. At the Three Days of De Panne, he won the opening stage from a six-man breakaway, having been led out in the sprint by teammate Sven Erik Bystrøm. He won the following two stages in bunch sprints, the second of which by ahead of André Greipel. Having held a 22-second lead going into the final individual time trial, Kristoff recorded the third-fastest time to win both the general and points classifications.
He then went on to win April's Tour of Flanders, his main goal for the spring classics, to become the first Norwegian rider to win the cobbled cycling monument. With some 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 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. With this form, Kristoff was seen as a favourite for Paris–Roubaix, but he ultimately finished the race in tenth place, prior to a pre-planned break from racing.
He returned to the peloton a month later at the Tour of Norway, winning the first two stages, the points classification and finishing eighth overall. He then won the first three stages at the Tour des Fjords, where he again won the points classification and finished in ninth place overall. He then took two further victories in Switzerland in June, winning both the Grand Prix of Aargau Canton and the seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse in bunch sprints. Before the end of the season, Kristoff took a further two victories – winning the opening stage of the Arctic Race of Norway and the GP Ouest-France one-day race – to take his tally to twenty wins, while also finishing second at the Vattenfall Cyclassics, third at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, and fourth in the road race at the UCI Road World Championships in the United States.

2016

Kristoff started his 2016 season with a hat-trick of stage wins at the flat Tour of Qatar, finishing in second position overall to Mark Cavendish. He then took a further two stage victories at the Tour of Oman, before a second consecutive runner-up finish at Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, leading home the main field behind the solo winner Jasper Stuyven. He won the opening stage of the Three Days of De Panne from a three-rider lead group, maintaining the race lead until the final individual time trial stage, dropping to second overall behind Lieuwe Westra – but he did win the points classification. He was unable to defend his title at the Tour of Flanders, leading home a small group of riders in fourth position, before taking another win at the Eschborn–Frankfurt – Rund um den Finanzplatz one-day race, held at the start of May. Prior to the Tour de France, Kristoff took a stage victory at the Tour of California, and he finished second to Edvald Boasson Hagen at the Norwegian National Road Race Championships. He was unable to take any stage wins at the Tour de France, taking a best result of second place on two occasions, losing out to Cavendish on stage fourteen and Peter Sagan on stage sixteen. He won the opening stage of the Arctic Race of Norway for the second year in succession, before he led home the main field at the Bretagne Classic Ouest-France, finishing third behind Oliver Naesen and Alberto Bettiol. His final victories of the season came at the Tour des Fjords, where he won the general classification, three stages and the points classification.

2017

Kristoff won the points classification at his first two starts of the 2017 season, also winning a stage at the Étoile de Bessèges and three stages at the Tour of Oman. He added another points classification victory at the Three Days of De Panne, winning a stage as well as finishing third overall. He recorded top-five finishes at both Milan–San Remo and the Tour of Flanders either side of the Three Days of De Panne, before a third win at the Eschborn–Frankfurt – Rund um den Finanzplatz – equalling Erik Zabel's record – having been led out by Zabel's son Rick Zabel. Having missed out on another stage win at the Tour de France – finishing second to Arnaud Démare on stage four following Peter Sagan's disqualification – Kristoff took a victory in his first race following the Tour de France, winning the RideLondon–Surrey Classic in a bunch sprint.
The following weekend, Kristoff again won a bunch sprint for the men's road race title at the UEC European Road Championships in Denmark. He took his first victory in the European champion's jersey at the Arctic Race of Norway, when he won the second stage, which finished on the runway at Bardufoss Airport, in a bunch sprint. He missed out in bunch sprints at the EuroEyes Cyclassics and the Bretagne Classic Ouest-France, before winning the points classification at the Tour of Britain, having finished each of the seven mass-start stages in either third, fourth or fifth place. Kristoff then won a silver medal in the road race at the UCI Road World Championships on home soil in Bergen, Norway. Only being out-sprinted by Sagan, who won a third consecutive world title, Kristoff took Norway's third medal in the event – after Thor Hushovd's victory in 2010 and Edvald Boasson Hagen's silver medal in 2012.