News

Today at the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) RUSADA took part in a working meeting with the International Biathlon Union (IBU) and the Russian Biathlon Union (RBU) top management.

The IBU is to establish a working group to meet the RBU full membership restoration criteria, including the Russian Anti-doping Agency (RUSADA) and the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) representatives. This was announced by IBU President Olle Dahlin at the end of the meeting.

"We are glad that the IBU Executive Committee put forward 12 announced criteria. First of all, we intend to establish a working group, which will include representatives of the RBU, IBU, RUSADA and ROC", - said Dahlin.

RUSADA Director General Yuri Ganus and Deputy Director General Margarita Pakhnotskaya took part in the meeting with the international and Russian biathlon top management, then was held an expanded meeting with the participation of ROC President Stanislav Pozdnyakov, ROC Secretary General Anastasia Davydova and Director of sports - Head of the ROC participation in Olympic sporting events Main Department Andrey Konokotin.

The IBU was represented by its President Olle Dahlin, first Vice-President Jiří Hamza, Secretary General Martin Kuchenmeister and member of the Executive Committee Ivor Lehotan. 

The Russian Biathlon Union was represented by Vladimir Drachev, first Vice-President Alexey Nuzhdov and Board Member Viktor Maigurov. 

"We support the decision to establish a working group to restore the RBU membership in the IBU”, - said Ganus, - "especially since the new RUSADA has experience in supporting our problem federations”.

The parties shared their opinions on the current situation of the Russian Biathlon Union temporary suspension. The meeting resulted in an agreement to establish a working group of the IBU, RBU, RUSADA and ROC representatives to implement the "road map” of 12 points. It also became known that the restoration of the RBU status will be considered in October next year at the IBU extraordinary Congress meeting. 

"It is extremely important that at least a third of the 12 points of the RBU membership restoration is under RUSADA jurisdiction, namely, anti - doping education, prevention of anti-doping rule violations, athletes’ personnel anti-doping support training, as well as the investigation of anti-doping rule violations, and here we have achieved impressive results over the past 2 years", - mentioned Margarita Pakhnotskaya.