Derisemlya: Unfortunately, the kind of young people who would come and immediately begin to show results have not grown up

Vice President Biathlon Federation of Ukraine Andrey Derisemlya spoke about preparations for the upcoming winter season 2024/25.

“How do I feel before the new season? If we are objective and take the names of athletes, both in the women’s and men’s teams, then we are counting on experienced athletes, on team leaders. They can show something, some results at the level of prizes.”

“Regarding relay races, this is a separate issue; a team can work here. It is also important that coaches bring the team to peak form at certain important competitions, such as the World and European Championships.”

“As for young people, they are young because their results cannot be stable, but they can shoot at a moment that they didn’t even expect, not only the coaches and fans, but also the athletes themselves. It often happens that an athlete has not shown good results before, and then shoots, it just so happened. And the main thing here is if the athlete holds this bar and moves up in terms of results.”

“Why has there been such a decline in results in recent years? The main reason is the change of generations. Unfortunately, the kind of young people who would come and immediately begin to show results have not grown up. If we analyze, we have athletes who have been competing in teams for quite a number of years, both men’s and women’s. There are athletes who ride for many years and do not show results, but do everything for this. There is some limit for everyone. An athlete cannot show results at the level of World Cup medalists if he has some kind of threshold, no matter how much he trains, no matter what he does.”

“For top-level results, personalities must emerge. They appear, they will appear, and this happens periodically. It’s in every team.”

“It’s just that in Ukraine a limited number of people are involved in biathlon. Unfortunately, every year there are fewer and fewer. Why? Because there are no bases, which also affects preparation. Now the war has made very big adjustments, which has had an additional impact. Therefore there are many factors. It is impossible to say just one thing here. Here, the combination of such factors as a whole influences the result.”

Let us recall that at the 2024 Summer World Championships Ukraine won six medals. In the men’s super sprint, Dmitry Pidruchny became the champion, and Artem Tishchenko the silver medalist. In the sprint among juniors, Victoria Khvostenko and Elena Gorodnaya won silver and bronze, respectively. Vitaly Mandzyn also won two golds in the sprint and pursuit among juniors.

The 2024/25 Biathlon World Cup starts on November 30, 2024 in the Finnish city of Kontiolahti and ends on March 23, 2025 in Holmenkollen, Norway. The Biathlon World Championships will be held in Lenzerheide, Switzerland from February 12 to 23, 2025.