Katusha Team is proud to congratulate with Alexander Kristoff, which took the bronze medal in the cycling male road race of London 2012! After yesterday’s magnificent opening celebration, Olympic Games started today: between all the other competitions, today took place also the cycling male road race, a 250 kilometers long route around London. Alexander Kristoff, managed to take the bronze medal after a great performance: Katusha Team’s Norwegian rider was in the daily breakaway, and managed to win the first chasing group sprint, 8” behind Alexander Vinokourov (Kazakhstan) and Rigoberto Uran (Colombia), respectevely gold and silver medallists. The race was characterized by not so demanding uphill parts, so it should have been a race for sprinters: but the long distance managed to change the expectations. The early breakaway was made by 12 riders: between them Denis Menchov, leader of Katusha Team for “Tour de France” who was representing the Russian National Team, and Kristoff himself. The escape was able to take a 5′ gap over the chasing group, leaded by the World Champion Mark Cavendish, helped by the “Tour de France” winner Bradley Wiggins and Christopher Froome. At the 5th lap, a group of ten counter-attacking riders left the group and managed to reach the riders ahead: between them also Luca Paolini (Italy) from Katusha Team and Alexander Kolobnev (Russia). As the gap from the main group decreased, Philippe Gilbert (Belgium) tried the attack in order to avoid the massive sprint: the other riders in the group ahead followed him, and the pace imposed by them seemed to be to hard to keep for the British Team, tired for the hard work during the whole day. After the Swiss and Italian Team, with Paolini, took control of the group ahead in order to work for their leaders, Fabian Cancellara and Vincenzo Nibali, Kolobnev tried several times to attack, putting into troubles all the others who had to close the gap he created everytime: the last attack was tried with 14 kilometers to go. Instead, the deciding attack came with 5 kilometers to go: Uran tried the blitz, strictly followed by Vinokourov. The duo managed to take and keep a 10” gap over the first chasing group: in the two-man sprint, the experience of Vinokourov made the difference, while Kristoff brillantly won the rush for the last rung of the podium. In the top-ten another Katusha Team’s rider, Luca Paolini, who closed 9th; Kolobnev, after a brilliant attacking race, closed 22nd.