As usual, Katusha was the team to beat in the Russian road race championships and this year they had selected their talented sprinter Alexander Porsev as the captain. The Russian lived up to expectations and will now wear the champion's jersey in his Tour de France debut.

It’s another double victory for Team Katusha. After a double win in the individual time trial two days ago, Katusha again took the first two podium places in the road race of the Russian National Championships, held in Tula.

Aleksandr Porsev became the new Russian road race Champion, while Vladimir Gusev took the silver medal and second podium place. The bronze medal is for Artur Ershov from Rusvelo.

"We started the race with our only aim to take a victory," Porsev said. "All of the rivals were very strong and it was quite impossible to predict the result until the final kilometers.

"Before the start, the team management appointed me as team leader, so all teammates did their best to help me today. We had a good strategy, which we followed 100%. It worked well, and finally, we won.

"I consider this victory as a complete team’s success, because it would be impossible to win alone in such a hard race as we had today. I am very happy with my performance. To become a Russian Champion is a great honor for me. I hope I will have a chance to justify this title with new victories at the international level."

"Today we saw a very beautiful, exciting race," manager Viacheslav Ekimov said. "I think it was one of the brightest races in the last few years. In Katusha’s roster we had all the strongest riders, except Silin and Trofimov, who are preparing for the Tour de France, and Ignatenko who is recovering from injury. The same was true for the Rusvelo team who had its strongest line-up too. This championship brought together the best Russian riders. This is the reason we’ve got a perfect and uncompromising battle.

"I am happy with Aleksandr Porsev and his nice victory. He lives and works hard all season and deserved this title today. Besides, next week he will start the Tour de France. This is the most prestigious race in the world, so it’s very important to have the Russian Champion in our roster there."

The race of 194.3 km started with a number of strong attacks, where Katusha’s riders, including 2013 Russian Champion Vladimir Isaychev, were very active. But the decisive breakaway went away in the final part of the race with Vladimir Gusev and Rusvelo rider Artur Ershov. With 30 km to go Aleksandr Porsev and Sergei Chernetckii joined them. With 12 km to go the advantage of the break was 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

Inside the final 4 km it was Aleksandr Porsev who did a strong attack. He took a good gap, enough to get a nice solo victory. Vladimir Gusev was second, while Artur Ershov completed the podium with third.

The success of Aleksandr Porsev became the 17th victory for Team Katusha in 2014.