Achievement and shortfalls in Russia’s biathlon

Russia has two Vancouver gold medals in the biathlon - one taken by the mass-start racer Yevgeni Ustyugov, and the other, by a quartette of female relay racers.

The haul of its biathlon team also includes one silver medal and one bronze. It is only one bronze medal less than the result in Turin. Not too bad, in fact, given a rotation of generations in this country's biathlon in the four years since the Turin Games. The supporters, however, expected much more and are expressly unhappy over Russia's biathlon performance in Vancouver.

Russia biathlon coach Vladimir Barnashov agrees and sees more than freak weather behind the poor results:

"Indeed, there were failures in the men's sprint and in the men's pursuit race. In four other events, the performance was good, although not always up to the best in the world's biathlon. Sport is sport, but shortfalls in coaching may have also played a role. We have yet to scrutinize our records and memories for possible coaching errors in the last two to four weeks before the Vancouver Olympics".

Barnashov says openness in this scrutiny can help his team prepare for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.