The coach of the Russian national team said about the psychological pressure on the biathletes Serokhvostov and Khalili

The coach of the Russian national team Artem Istomin told the “Championship” that biathletes Daniil Serokhvostov and Karim Khalili are experiencing psychological pressure after moving from the group of Yuri Kaminsky.

– Daniil Serokhvostov called the last off-season the worst in his career, referring to numerous health problems. What were they?

– In April, he suffered a severe form of coronavirus. After that, he began to have allergic reactions, and this is immediately a decrease in immunity. Accordingly, he missed the first training stage. Then he began to get involved, worked well in June and July, after which he again fell ill with the corona in August.

I did not put pressure on him so that he was immediately treated with antibiotics, they tried to do without them – it did not work out. All the same, he had to undergo a course of treatment, after which he seriously lost muscle mass and, accordingly, in shape. He devoted the past month to trying to regain the lost condition.

Daniel is a functional guy, and it’s too bad that it all turned out this way. We had other plans for the upcoming season. It is within his power to reach last year’s level, but he is not sure to take a step forward. At this stage, he is recovering, and recovering well, and in technical terms, all the changes that we wanted to see are visible.

Psychologically, he is a strong athlete, he will withstand everything. It is clear that he and Karim (Khalili) are under psychological pressure due to joining our group. I would like to ask those who do this – who do you root for? Obviously not for the Russian biathlon.

Are they under pressure? By whom?

– There is pressure. But I won’t name anyone,” Istomin said.