Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) once again won the sprint of the first large group to arrive at the finish in today's Ronde van Vlaanderen. The Olympic bronze medallist was happy with a breakthrough performance on the Belgian cobbles, but would have wished to sprint for a podium place.

Alexander Kristoff has a habit of winning the group sprint for the minor placings in the biggest races. In last year's Olympic road race he was the best of the rest behind the winning duo of Alexandre Vinokourov and Rigoberto Uran, and in this year's Milan-Sanremo he beat Mark Cavendish to take 8th behind the 7-man escape group.

Today's Tour of Flanders saw the Norwegian once again repeat that performance. With Fabian Cancellara, Peter Sagan and Jurgen Roelandts up the road, Kristoff's group was sprinting for 4th, and the Norwegian once again held off his competitors in a sprint at the end of a long race.

A key ingredient in every monument is the ability to save energy, and runner-up in the Driedaagse van de Panne was impressed by his team's ability to keep him protected all day.

"Today it was a really brilliant job of the whole team Katusha," he said. "My teammates kept me out of troubles during the race, so I managed to save my power for the final."

He was assisted by teammate Luca Paolini in the final group. The veteran Italian attempted a solo attack inside the final kilometer, but was immediately brought back. Instead, he focused his energy on setting up his faster teammate before passing the finish line in 23rd position.

"On the finishing straight Luca tried to do a solo attack, but it was very hard to surprise the rivals, "Kristoff explained. "So we did a sprint, which was perfect for me and I took 4th place."

Kristoff was happy with the result, but unsurprisingly rued the missed opportunity to step onto the podium in one of cycling's 5 monuments.

"Indeed, there was a little bit of a pity, that it was a fighting only for 4th place. Anyway, we could be very happy with our performance today. To finish 4th  in one of the most prestigious races in the world of cycling is a great thing."

Kristoff will get his next chance to show his strength at the end of long, hard races when he lines up in the Paris-Roubaix next Sunday. With his current strong run of form, it would be no surprise to see the Norwegian improve on last year's 57th place.