After the first stage of the Tour of Qatar Alexander Kristoff could find himself in 5th place in the GC. But Kristoff finished the stage in 78th place due to a crash with only 2 km to go. The crash occurred inside the final 3 km and he will be given the same time as the rest of the peloton.

Being noted the same time as the rest of the peloton, he profited from the intermediate sprint, where he took 2 bonus seconds and can now see himself right behind the 4 riders from today’s successful breakaway. He says it was a pity to crash in the very first race of the season, but he couldn’t do anything to avoid it.

“What a pity to crash in very first race in the season. But I could do nothing in that moment when some riders crashed in front of me. The group had a very high speed, around 60 km/h, so I tried to avoid the crash but I couldn’t. I was lucky and my injures are minor, just a few lesions on my right arm and a little bit on the legs. Hope, tomorrow everything will be alright,” said Alexander Kristoff to the Katusha site

The stage was characterized by a very strong wind. The stage winner was Niki Terpstra, who got away from the breakaway group, will start in the leader’s jersey tomorrow. Second place was taken by Jurgen Roelandts and Michael Schär finished the podium.

The best finishing rider from Katusha was German Rudiger Selig. He says it was a very nervous stage and the team will see what they can do tomorrow.

“It was a very nervous and hard stage because of strong wind. We will see tomorrow what we can to do,” said Rudiger Selig.