Two-time Olympic champion in biathlon Dmitry Vasilyev believes that the reason for the change of citizenship by biathlete Lidia Zhurauskaite to Lithuanian may be increased competition in the Russian team. Vasiliev told this to a Match TV correspondent.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, by his decree, satisfied the application of the 23-year-old biathlete to withdraw from Russian citizenship.

– I am absolutely calm. In this case, no one should be forced to be a citizen of a particular country. If she decided that she is closer to Lithuania than to Russia, that is her choice. I think after a while she will regret it. But it will be extremely difficult for her to get Russian citizenship back.

Political processes are changing at such a speed, and the Baltics are not in the best light right now. From there, on the contrary, all young people leave to work and generally do not really want to live in their Baltic countries. I think this is an attempt to avoid additional competition from the Russian team, because it is not so easy to get into our team, and in the Lithuanian team it can be among the leaders. I want to believe that she is guided by these considerations.

Did her coach talk about not the best conditions for training in Murmansk? I don’t know how strange it is to hear. As far as I know, luxurious shooting ranges and stadiums have been built in Murmansk in the “Valley of Comfort”, and this has not been the case for a long time, and finally all the conditions have been created there. Maybe I don’t know something, I haven’t been there for a long time – 6-7 years. But those who were there recently praise the conditions for biathlon, Vasilyev told Match TV.

Zhurauskaite was not part of the Russian team and did not win awards in junior competitions. She intends to play for the Lithuanian national team. The athlete stated that her goal is to get to the 2026 Olympics.