Having already been selected for the Tour de France by his Katusha team, Gatis Smukulis showed great condition when he won today's Latvian TT championships for the fourth year in a row. Smukulis now hopes to add to his tally by winning Sunday's road race as well.

Gatis Smukulis brought the 15th win in the current season to the Russian WorldTour Team Katusha. Today, Smukuli won the gold medal in the individual time trial of the Latvian National Road Championships held in Smiltenē.

"I am really happy with today’s victory," he said. "It is a pleasure for me to become the National Champion again, especially right ahead of my participation in the Tour de France. The profile of the race was much harder than in previous years, all the time up and down. In addition, it was raining and windy in the morning, so the road was pretty slippery in the first part of the race. But I managed to pass the distance in a good rhythm, which helped me to win.

"After Tour de Suisse I was a little bit tired, but towards the end of the race I felt much better. Now I am looking forward to the road race on Sunday. This year there are a lot of strong riders here in the Latvian Championships, so the Sunday race will be very hard. But I will try to do my best and hope I will have a chance to fight for a victory."

Second place at the 50 km distance was taken by Aleksajs Saramotins from IAM Cycling, who lost 6 seconds to Katusha’s rider. The bronze medal was won by Andžs Flaksis from Rietumu-Delfin.