“All foreign biathletes are waiting for our return, they support us” – Latypov

russian biathlete Edward Latypov said that all the foreign colleagues he spoke with support the Russians and await their return to international tournaments.

In the 2022/23 season, Latypov became the first in the SBR ranking and the Commonwealth Cup standings. Russians and Belarusians did not participate in competitions under the auspices of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) last season.

– How did you feel seeing the IOC and IBU recommendations?

– A lot of time has passed while we are in limbo… I hope everything will normalize and common sense will prevail, and we will be allowed to participate in international competitions without any controls, etc. And we will prove on the tracks which of us is the strongest. We prepare, train and bide our time. I hope that the recommendations will be relaxed, as in other international federations. It’s just a matter of time.

– Do you communicate with foreign colleagues?

– It’s good that a certain number of athletes are waiting for us and express themselves in the press. Of course, everyone wants competition, they want to popularize our sport. When people know in advance who is going to win, it’s not very interesting. I communicate with foreign guys, they all support us and want us to come back. They have a committee of athletes who have tried to hear us out and convey this position to the IBU leadership. Relations with the guys have not changed, we congratulate ourselves on victories in competitions, – the correspondent reports the words of Latypov.

All competitions at the stages of the Cup and the championship of Russia, the Commonwealth Cup of the last biathlon season were broadcast by the Match holding channel, and were also broadcast on the sportbox.ru and matchtv.ru websites.