“The doctor is the main thing missing. We’d rather manage without him than try to bring someone in, that’s not realistic for us.” – Babikov

Biathlon World Champion Anton Babikov told that his team, where Alexander Loginov and Alexander Povarnitsyn train, lacks medical personnel.

World champion Babikov, two-time Olympic bronze medalist Loginov and World Cup medalist Povarnitsyn are doing their pre-season training on their own. The group trains according to the plans of coach Dmitry Shukalovich.

– Dmitry Shukalovich said on your Telegram channel that the team lacked a driver, a biochemist and a massage therapist. Accept?

– You don’t need an average masseuse. During the inter-collection, I went to see a specialist who helped me last year. It has incredibly modern techniques that give such effects that a moderately qualified massage therapist will not do for you in a week’s work. Such things make you spin and think more than they cause trouble.

We replace the driver ourselves – yes. When we arrive at training camp, a few days pass because instead of training, we need recovery. In July we drove here and from here for a very long time, as the roads were very busy. It would be more convenient if we had a driver, but that’s not the biggest problem, we can easily deal with it. Biochemistry is also something you can get away with. The doctor is the most basic thing missing.

— Is it planned to invite a specialist?

– Of course not. We can’t afford it. As I said, we don’t need the weak or the average, in our case we need the professionals. But we can’t even afford to hire a mid-level specialist. We will rather manage as we are doing now rather than try to bring someone with us – it’s not realistic, – Babikov told .

The summer leg of the Alfa-Bank Biathlon Commonwealth Cup kicks off in Sochi on September 7. All the races will be broadcast live by the channel, you can also follow the starts on the matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru sites.