“The political demands of the IBU are unacceptable, it will only get worse” – Guberniev

Match TV commentator Dmitry Guberniev considers the new requirements of the Executive Committee of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) to Russian and Belarusian athletes unacceptable and impossible to fulfill.

On Tuesday, the IBU Executive Committee recommended to the IBU Congress that the suspension of Russian and Belarusian biathletes from international competitions be upheld until further notice. In particular, the IBU demands that the Russian Biathlon Union (RBU) and the Belarusian Biathlon Federation (BFB) distance themselves from the situation in Ukraine and prevent the participation of athletes and persons associated with the federations in the events of the Russian army.

– The IBU has made political demands on Russian athletes, this is something new. It seems to me that this happened for the first time in sports world history. The IBU has surpassed all other federations. And what does it mean to “distance” at a time when the entire Russian biathlon team is servicemen, representatives of CSKA or, like Serokhvostov, a serviceman of another unit. That is, all of our team that competed at the Games are servicemen of the Russian Federation one way or another. There are civilians, and there are people with ranks. I don’t really understand how the IBU suggests distancing? Therefore, these are absolutely political demands, and they are unacceptable.

The situation is bad, it will get worse. We will not appear in biathlon on the international arena very soon. The IBU will be the last federation to let us in. This is absolutely accurate, ”the Match TV website quotes Guberniev as saying.

The IBU suspended Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in international competitions under its auspices in early March.