The biathlon off-season does not indulge fans with a lot of interesting news. With the fact that our main team is preparing for domestic competitions, and not for the World Cup, we can’t do anything, and the ups and downs around the election of the president of the Russian Biathlon Union have temporarily subsided.

Therefore, Lydia Zhurauskaite came to the fore. The Murmansk biathlete changed her citizenship, provoking a lot of different comments in her address.

However, you should not worry that Russia has lost its future in the person of Lydia. She had been planning her move for a long time, and her name can hardly be found in the finishing protocols of the Russian competitions.

What is happening now with Zhurauskaite is the brightest thing that has happened in her career.

no prospects

Many fans could be very surprised when last spring they found domestic competitions in the broadcast calendar, such as the Russian Biathlon Championship and Cup. Out of habit, the average fan of this sport recognizes only the World Cup, but you have to retrain.

Watching the starts in Ufa and Tyumen, it was noticeable how much the reservists and representatives of the regional teams Kazakevich, Reztsova and other athletes of the main Russian team were inferior. Moreover, this concerned both physical training and the quality of equipment.

Photo: © Dmitry Chelyapin / Match TV

The heroine of today’s biathlon agenda, Lydia Zhurauskaite, did not take part in these starts, so it is impossible to compare her current state with top athletes. However, it is much more significant that she finished her last season 2020/2021 in 27th place in the final classification of the Russian Cup among juniors.

At the Russian Cup, she last performed at the beginning of 2020 and became 42nd. At that time, athletes from the national team did not compete at domestic competitions. That is, even against the background of not the strongest girls, a native of Murmansk was not in the lead. She has never been called up to the national team for any of the ages.

Actually, there are no prospects for continuing a career, but there are big ambitions.

Another way

For our reservists, there is a trodden path for years to compete at the international level through the change of sports citizenship. Over the past couple of years, more than ten people have left Russia. And the most famous examples in the long history of such changes are Olympic champion Anastasia Kuzmina (Slovakia) and World Cup medalist Timofey Lapshin (South Korea). But when they moved, they remained Russians, keeping our passport.

Anastasia Kuzmina / Photo: © RIA Novosti/Alexey Filippov

Lydia decided to do otherwise and get a place in the national team through a full-fledged change of citizenship.

– Lydia has already received citizenship under the restoration program – the great-grandfather of the athlete was Lithuanian. During the year, with the help of the federation, all archival documents were collected. We received a decision to grant her Lithuanian citizenship, now we are waiting for the only certificate from Russia – about renunciation of the citizenship of this country – the head of the Lithuanian Biathlon Federation Arunas Daugirdas explained the situation in October 2021.

Actually, in July, the corresponding decree was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now Lydia, for the sake of her dream, finally severed all ties with Russia, which raised her as a biathlete.

To Milan via Lithuania

It is obvious that she can become one of the main athletes of the Lithuanian national team. The best shooting skier in the country, Gabriela Leskinskaite, took 81st place in the overall standings of the World Cup at the end of the past season. In such a competition, Lydia has much more chances. And then she will be one step closer to her dream – to compete at the Olympics.

— My main goal is the Olympic Games in Italy. I can’t compete at the Beijing Olympics because we don’t have time to get citizenship. But it is very important for me to be noticed and given the opportunity. I see how the president and the coach of the federation are trying to make me feel as comfortable as possible here. I am very grateful to Lithuania,” Zhurauskaite said back in November 2021

Photo: © Dmitry Chelyapin / Match TV

In Russia, the news about the change of citizenship was perceived ambiguously: from the neutral comments of Dmitry Guberniev to the dubious assessment of his namesake Vasiliev, who believes that Lydia will regret her decision.

Who will definitely not have to regret is the Russian fans. It is unlikely that Zhurauskaite will be remembered by anyone after the change of citizenship. We definitely did not lose the future of our biathlon, but simply once again showed other countries that the Russians are an important part of their sports life.