Alexander Kristoff has revealed the extent of the weight gain he suffered in the opening week of last July’s Tour de France.
The Norwegian and Ireland’s Dan Martin were team mates at
UAE Team Emirates last year and rode the Tour de France; a race in which the
team rode well below par.
After the race international news reports emerged
claiming the team tried a new drink on the Tour that caused the riders to
retain fluid and gain weight.
Former world champion, TV 2 Norway
cycling pundit, said after the race that sources in the team told him a new drink
had been tried.
It was suggested the drink had resulted in the cyclists’
bodies absorbing and retaining too much fluid leading to weight gain and a drop
in performance.
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UAE Team Emirates at the time denied there were any such
problems. Dan Martin hinted on the race at specific problems with the team’s
preparation for the Tour, saying they needed to be examined.
But while the Irishman believed the nature of the
problems would emerge publicly after the event, he did not disclose them.
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Now Alexander Kristoff has revealed very significant
weight gain during the opening week of the Tour.
"There are many things that happened. Ultimately, the whole squad was too heavy,” he has now told cyclingnews.
“I maybe started the Tour at 77.9kg and after a few days
I was close to 84kg. Then it's difficult to perform.”
He believed the team had eaten too much and had also retained
fluids, with both causing weight gain on the race.
However, he felt the weight gain problems during the Tour
were more complex than being related to one sports drink.
The riders, he believed, “got too much energy” in consuming
too much drink and food even for the demands of the Tour.
He explained that on some stages, even at the Tour, the
demands on the riders’ bodies were not as great as one may think.
Dan Martin has since moved on to Israel Cycling Academy
while Kristoff has extended his contract for two more years, though Fernando
Gaviria is not the top sprinter for the Tour.
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