Alexander Kristoff is one of the big favourites for the World Championships in Richmond, Virginia. But the Katusha Team rider will be able to win only if the elite men's road race will come down to a bunch sprint.

"I hope it will come down to a sprint," Kristoff told Cyclingnews. "I think that would suit me quite well because the finish of the course is quite hard and then flat at the end on the top of the last climb, so I hope it’s a sprint. That’s my plan [to win the World Championships] but the course suits many guys who are going to be there. There are many guys who can win and many of the teams will have a lot of guys."

This year, Norway will have six riders in the road race, but the sprinter is still confident. "We have a whole team compared to three riders, which was normal for us before. That will make us a little bit stronger as a squad, but we will see what happens. The team is built around me and we will try as much as possible to try to control the race. For sure there will be other teams, for example Germany, that will have the same interests I think, so hopefully we can work together with other teams and keep the race under control."