The German and his teammates on how they’ve gone about setting up a new alliance

Welcome to the Cyclingnews Podcast, brought to you in association with Prendas Ciclismo, Pinarello, and our newest partner, Floyd’s of Leadville. This week we have a special edition of the show as we go behind the scenes of Marcel Kittel’s lead-out train at Katusha-Alpecin’s Mallorca training camp.

Kittel is arguably the best pound-for-pound sprinter on the planet right now and won five stages in last year’s Tour de France before announcing that he was moving from Quick-Step Floors to Katusha-Alpecin for the 2018 campaign. At the team’s recent training camp we sat down with Kittel and several of his new lead-out men, including Marco Haller, Nils Politt, and Rick Zabel.

Kittel came to Katusha to replace the outgoing sprinter Alexander Kristoff, and attempted to bring Fabio Sabatini with him. That move failed, and the loss of Michael Morkov to Kittel’s old team, Quick-Step meant that Kittel and his Katusha squad had some rebuilding to do.

In this exclusive podcast we hear from Kittel and his lead-out about how they have trained together and bonded over the off-season, the intricate nature of lead-out trains, and how Katusha-Alpecin hope to kick-start their new sprint dawn at the Dubai Tour next week.