Former U23 world champion Anton Vorobyev confirmed his big potential when he won today's Russian time trial championships. The race was his big goal for the season and was his first test on a very long distance.

WorldTour Team Katusha took a perfect double victory in the individual time trial of the Russian National Road Championships, held in Tula. The race took place in terrible weather conditions – it was very cold and raining all the day.

Anton Vorobyev became the new Russian ITT Champion, posting the best time 1:01.17 over the 50 km distance. Another Team Katusha rider Sergei Chernetckii won the silver medal, losing 1 minute and 6 seconds to his teammate.

Artem Ovechkin from Rusvelo completed the Russian ITT Championships podium, taking the bronze medal. Ovechkin lost 1 minute and 45 seconds to the winner.

"For me this is a very important victory, I was very motivated for it," Vorbyev said. "The Russian Championships were one of the main goals in the season for me. And I built all my preparation having in my mind the Russian Champs, where I wanted to be in top shape. I did a huge amount of work and used a lot of power for it.

"Before the start I felt I was strong, but had some doubts if everything would be ok, because this is the first time to ride such a long distance in a race and also, the rivals are really strong here. In the end everything went well and I am happy.

"The race was hard - I started under heavy rain. I did not know exactly what to expect on this distance; it was hard to distribute power over the whole race. Thus my first lap was very speedy, while on the second one I suffered a little bit, but in the end I found enough energy to win. Next time I will do such a long distance will be at the World Championships, where I would like to proudly represent Russia."

"The weather was not the best, but I was a little bit lucky and I did most of the race without rain," Chernetskii added. "But it was still cold and windy. In general, I felt quite well during the whole race. After the Tour de Suisse I managed to recover and to get some rest, so today in the time trial I was in good shape. I am pretty happy with the result, this is my first podium at the Russian Championships in the elite category."

"A victory at the Russian Championships is always a very important achievement for Team Katusha," general manager Viacheslav Ekimov said. "I am glad that it was Anton Vorobyev who won today. I think this success is very important for him. The win will give him more confidence in himself and will help to leave behind that hard period connected with injures.

"Anton did a very solid race, getting a strong result. He passed 50 km with a hard profile and in tough weather conditions in 1 hour 1 minute and 17 seconds – that’s really impressive. Sergei Chernetckii also did a very good race today.

"Today Katusha took one more victory – Gatis Smukulis won at the Latvian Championships. What a nice day for our team!"

Today’s success is the first personal win of Anton Vorobyev as a professional rider. The U23 World ITT Champion and 2-time U23 Russian Champion, Vorbyev came into professional ranks in 2013 with Team Katusha. Last season he took two podium places and was part of Katusha’s victorious team time trial at a stage of Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali. This season Vorobyev took a podium place in the ITT of the Bayern Rundfahrt.

The win of Anton Vorobyev in the Russian ITT Championships is the 16th win for Team Katusha in 2014.