Team Katusha had a modest start to its Tirreno-Adriatico campaign today, finishing only sixteenth out of twenty teams and dropping 53 seconds to Rabobank. However the leaders Joaquim Rodriguez, Danilo Di Luca, Filippo Pozzato and Alexander Kolobnev are likely to be more concerned with chasing stage victories at this point of the season rather than fixating too much on the overall classification.
Kolobnev has been training hard of late to build his condition. He said that he has spent “weeks in a training camp on [Mount] Etna, where because of the cold, the training wasn’t as regular as I wished. Some days I felt really good and not so much on others. Despite that, I think I arrive here in good condition.”
When on form, the Russian is certainly one to watch. Four years ago he took a remarkable solo stage win in Paris-Nice, going clear early on in a break, and then striking out alone inside the final 15 kilometres. He was just over a minute clear when he attacked, and the lined-out bunch behind suggested he was toast. However he was riding very strongly and reached the line 12 seconds ahead.
Tom Boonen won the sprint from the bunch, threw his arms in the air, then discovered – to his surprise - that one rider had managed to resist the late charge of the peloton.
Milan-Sanremo is a likely target for Kolobnev. He’s got a habit of rising to the big occasions, having taken second in the world road race championships in 2007 and 2009, picking up third in the Olympic road race in 2008, and also finishing as runner-up in last year’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. While he hasn’t taken a major one day win, he’s been banging on the door for a long time and seems destined to make the breakthrough at some point. He’ll hope it will happen this spring.
As regards Tirreno itself, he said that he would something. However he accepts it will be complicated by the nature of the stages. “I like some of them but they are not extremely hard so it will not be difficult for the peloton to capture the breakaways. I will act by surprise.”
Kolobnev said that he expects the final time trial to decide the race. The 9.3 kilometre test takes place next Tuesday; before then, a mixture of stages and terrain will determine who holds the lead prior to that race against the clock.