Former Russian national team biathlete Alexey Volkov said in an interview with that since his disqualification began in 2022, he has gone into business, opening prepared food stores.
In the spring of 2022, Volkov was disqualified for anti-doping rule violations nine years ago, so he stopped working as a coach. The disqualification ended in December last year.
— In 2022, you left the regional team due to disqualification, what are you doing now?
— I don’t work as a coach, because I couldn’t do it due to disqualification. I opened prepared food stores. One in Yekaterinburg, another in Tyumen. There are plans to open more.
– Wow, how did you get there?
— I thought about what I could do in general, outside of sport. I saw the franchise, met people, and that’s how it happened. Things are going well, I’ve been doing this for a little over a year.
— The disqualification ended before the new year. You can already start coaching. To want?
– Honestly, I do not know. When I was in the national team, I wanted it, but now I’ve gone a little in the other direction, towards entrepreneurship. I’m trying to grow in business. I started this whole thing from scratch. I haven’t taken any courses, but now I’m reading a few business books. I often communicate with my partners about how to do things better.
– A big team?
— We have a team of salespeople. The store manager is my wife. For now, it’s the staff (laughs).
— Do your partners even know that they are dealing with an Olympic champion?
– It’s different for everyone. I’m the type of person who doesn’t usually shout that I’m an honored athlete and that I played for the national team. More often than not, people can figure it out. Moreover, they will find out later, even if we have been communicating for a long time.
— From the start of the disqualification, did biathlon cease to interest you?
— Due to the fact that I started working closely to open a store, I did not have time to follow biathlon. Well, after being kicked out of the World Cup, interest waned a bit. This season I watch the races a little more, I even plan to come to the Spartakiade in Zlatoust to meet friends,” Volkov told .
Volkov finished his sports career in 2020. He won relay gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics alongside Evgeniy Ustyugov, Dmitry Malyshko and Anton Shipulin. But their result could be overturned if the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejects the appeal in the Ustyugov case for use of a banned substance.
Source : MatchTV
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