Ten years ago, Steven Kruijswijk was on course to win the Giro d’Italia. A catastrophic crash robbed him of the pink jersey in 2016. But earlier in that race, an unknown Russian had already denied him a stage win. Alexander Foliforov outsprinted the Dutchman in the uphill time trial to Alpe di Siusi. The result raised eyebrows at the time — including those of Jos van Emden, current Visma | Lease a Bike women’s DS. Now, Foliforov has responded.
Kruijswijk had delivered a crucial blow the day before in stage fourteen. The LottoNL-Jumbo rider took the pink jersey and the stage win. At the stage fifteen uphill time trial he was outstanding again — putting time into all of his GC rivals. Only Foliforov, riding for the Pro-Continental team Gazprom-Rusvelo, proved faster. He beat Kruijswijk by just 0.16 seconds.
“I didn’t expect to win or even finish in the top three,” Foliforov told Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld, a full ten years on. “I thought: it would be cool to finish in the top twenty. If I rode top ten, I would be the happiest person in the world.”The result drew raised eyebrows, especially from Kruijswijk’s teammate at the time, Jos van Emden. The time trial specialist said at the time: “At a certain point that Russian was more than half a minute down, then he was way ahead of Steven, and at the finish he lost a lot of time again. It is crystal clear that he was holding onto a team car.”
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Foliforov responds: ‘Jos has almost solved the mystery’Foliforov is well aware of the accusations. “Yes, of course I saw Jos’s accusations. All my friends and acquaintances spammed me with publications containing his quotes. I have to say Jos did well. After ten years he has almost solved the mystery. Except — in reality I was not holding onto a team car.”So what is the truth? The Russian, who retired from cycling in 2018, responds to Van Emden’s remarks with a deadpan joke. He was not hanging onto a car. “Instead, I rode the entire climb up in an Uber. I was planning to win by ten minutes, but the driver was late, so I only won by a fraction of a second.”
“No, seriously: we had a good laugh about his comments with friends and colleagues. Everyone who has raced Grand Tours understands that holding onto a team car is impossible. There are spectators everywhere along the route, helicopters flying overhead and camera motorbikes all around. So no — I did not do it.”
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