One month after finishing in the top 10 in the Giro d'Italia, Yury Trofimov (Katusha) continued his fantastic 2015 season by taking a first Russian road race title. The Katusha rider attacked out of a 6-rider group with 13km to go and held off Pavel Brutt (Tinkoff-Saxo) and his teammate Sergey Lagutin to take the victory.

Yury Trofimov has long been known as a very strong rider but this year he has clearly taken another step up. In the Giro d'Italia, he seemed poised to finish in the top 5 until he fell ill in the final week but still managed to finish in the top 10.

That made him one to watch in the Russian road race championships which was held on a 204km course around the city of Saransk. With a great victory, Trofimov showed that he is still in great condition and he made sure that the jersey stayed in the Katusha ranks after his teammate Alexander Porsev won the title 12 months ago.

The 204 km race in the streets of the centre of Saransk began with a number of attacks. Many riders tried to escape while Team Katusha was very active in front, working hard for its leaders. After a good attack, it was Eduard Vorganov who went in a solo breakaway. Later a group of 14 riders joined him before  another counterattack created a front group of 6 that quickly got a big advantage. Vladimir Isaychev, Iurii Trofimov, Sergey Lagutin and Viacheslav Kuznetsov made sure that Katusha had four riders in the group and found themselves up against Pavel Brutt from Tinkoff-Saxo and Sergey Belykh from ITERA-Katusha.

With 13,5 km to go Iurii Trofimov made a powerful attack resulting in his first gold medal in the Russian Championships. Pavel Brutt was second 15 seconds behind, while Sergey Lagutin finished 3rd, 6 seconds behind Brutt.

Trofimov hasn't been selected for the Tour de France and so will have to wait some time before he gets the chance to debut his new jersey.