"I rode the entire climb up in an Uber": Alexander Foliforov fires back at Jos van Emden's 2016 Giro accusations

It has been a decade since one of the most shocking stage results in modern Giro d'Italia history, when a virtually unknown Alexander Foliforov denied Steven Kruijswijk a mountain time trial victory by mere fractions of a second. The surprise result raised eyebrows in the peloton, leading Kruijswijk's then-teammate Jos van Emden to publicly accuse the Russian of hitching a ride on a team car. Ten years after the controversial day on Alpe di Siusi, Foliforov has finally broken his silence, responding to the cheating allegations.

During Stage 15 of the 2016 Giro d'Italia, Steven Kruijswijk was flying high. Having captured the pink jersey the previous day, the LottoNL-Jumbo rider put on a masterclass during the uphill time trial, putting significant time into all his main general classification rivals.

Victory seemed virtually guaranteed for the Dutchman until Foliforov, riding for the Pro-Continental wild-card team Gazprom - Rusvelo, crossed the line just 0.16 seconds faster. "I didn't expect to win or even finish in the top three," Foliforov told Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld, reflecting on the milestone a decade later. "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 unexpected performance didn't sit well with Kruijswijk’s camp. Jos van Emden, currently a sporting director for the Visma | Lease a Bike women's team but a time trial specialist for LottoNL-Jumbo at the time, was highly skeptical of Foliforov's fluctuating time splits on the climb.

Van Emden didn't mince words a few days ago, pointing to what he believed was clear evidence of foul play. "At a certain point, that Russian was more than half a minute behind, then he was far ahead of Steven, and at the finish line he lost a lot of time again. It is crystal clear that he was hanging onto the car," he argued.

Foliforov, who retired from professional cycling in 2018 when he was just 26 years old, was well aware of the storm his victory caused in the media. "Yes, of course I saw Jos's accusations. All my friends and acquaintances spammed me with publications containing his quotes," Foliforov said. "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."

Instead, the former Russian climber offered a sarcastic alternative to how he managed to edge out the maglia rosa. "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."

Turning serious, Foliforov pointed out that Grand Tour mountain time trials are simply too heavily monitored for anyone to successfully tow behind a vehicle.

"No, seriously: we had a good laugh about his comments with friends and colleagues," he concluded. "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."