The Biathlon World Championship in Antholz in 2020 began triumphantly for the leader of the Russian national team Alexander Loginov. He took gold in the sprint and bronze in the pursuit. The relay race and the mass start were supposed to be a beautiful point for Sasha at the world championship, but at 6 am on the day of the relay race there was the loudest scandal in biathlon in recent years.

The Italian police broke into Loginov’s room. The athlete was threatened with a criminal case and treated like a real criminal.

“They arrived at six in the morning to the criminals”

February 2020. The world did not yet know that the coronavirus, which many laughed at, would soon completely change their lives. The World Championship in Italy was the last biathlon tournament to date, which was held in a festive atmosphere. One of its main characters, of course, was our Alexander Loginov. He spent not the best season, but by the main start of the season he got ready and brilliantly won the sprint race.

Photo: © Franz Kirchmayr / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Only now his joy was overshadowed by the Norwegian brothers Be and the Swede Sebastian Samuelsson, who remembered Sasha’s doping past and tried to force the Russian to apologize to the biathlon family. Loginov listened to all this and invited the Scandinavians to come to him personally and talk about everything. For some reason they didn’t agree. At that time, this was the main scandal of the tournament and it seemed that nothing could interrupt him.

However, less than a week later, shocking news came from the hotel of the Russian team in Antholz. At about 6 am, the Italian police broke into the room where Alexander Loginov and Evgeny Garanichev lived. Law enforcement officers conducted a full search of the room, confiscated Loginov’s phone, computer, some folder and left him to sit in his shorts all this time. Garanichev also got it, who had nothing to do with it at all, but became an unwitting participant in the process. Two members of the relay team simply thwarted preparations for the most important race of the World Cup.

– They broke into the room, and I’m in my shorts. The police take my barrel and Garanichev’s weapon and take them aside. At first I didn’t understand what they were doing. And then I realized that they were afraid that we would do something with these weapons. I also had a small knife opener. They took him away too. They were afraid that we would do something to them, probably. They arrived at ten minutes to six in the morning to the criminals, ”Loginov told reporters after the relay in the mixed zone.

Who set the police on fire and why

It quickly became clear that the anti-doping manager of the International Biathlon Union Sarah Fussek-Hakkarainen set the police on the leader of the Russian national team. On February 19, she made an official request to law enforcement agencies demanding an investigation into the involvement of Loginov and his personal trainer Alexander Kasperovich in violating Italian anti-doping laws. So what was the essence of the claims?

It turned out that Loginov’s coach Kasperovich walked around the biathlon stadium with someone else’s accreditation. And not some, but Ukrainian, which he borrowed from one of the members of the Ukrainian team. The fact is that Kasperovich could not be accredited in our team, referring to the lack of quotas. Therefore, I had to look for alternative options and not quite legal ones. Although, as they said in the biathlon community, there were such cases with other people’s passes before and few people cared.

Alexander Kasperovich / Photo: © RIA Novosti / Alexander Wilf

Loginov spoiled the ending of the World Cup and did not even apologize

But here we are talking about the personal trainer of the best biathlete in Russia, who has just become world champion. And who had previously served a suspension for doping. The perfect combo. Sara Fussek-Hakkarainen believed that Kasperovich, with the help of Ukrainian accreditation, somehow tried to hide his presence at the stadium and could transfer prohibited substances to his ward. Complete nonsense, but the result of such a check was the visit of the Italian police to Loginov’s room, which the head coach of the Russian national team Anatoly Khovantsev called without cuts “shmon”.

Of course, the police did not find any illegal drugs in the room of Loginov and Garanichev, although there was talk of a real criminal case. Complete surrealism: no evidence, no facts, but a lot of guesswork and threats. At the same time, there were no apologies from either the IBU or the Italian side. As they did not give Sasha his computer and phone.

All this affected the mood of the team, which took only fourth place in the relay race, which took place on the day of the searches. No wonder, given that the team leader had to get up at six in the morning and endure a lot of stress. And Loginov did not go to the mass start at all, having left Italy ahead of schedule. Sasha even said that he was so tired of what was happening that he was ready to end his career. Fortunately, he did not do this and then took many more medals at the World Cups and finally became a two-time medalist at the Beijing Olympics.