The Russian team is confident of bouncing back from poor recent form when the 2012 World Biathlon Championships start Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany.
The team disappointed at last year’s competition in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiisk, the first time since 1999 that Russia failed to win a single gold at a world championships outside Olympic years.
A more technical training regimen has improved the team since, said Anton Shipulin, 2010 Olympic bronze medalist.
“We do work that we didn’t used to. We work more on ourselves, do more analysis, discuss technical topics more. Put this all together and it delivers the result,” he said. “The first few events should show how prepared I am for this competition. I’ve prepared to the max and hope to get a result to match.”
Russia’s women failed to pick up a single medal last year, but women’s team coach Wolfgang Pichler wants three medals in Ruhpolding, he said Tuesday.
“I’d be satisfied if we won three medals,” Pichler said, adding that the women’s team “can potentially win medals in every race, although it will be very difficult.”
“I know for definite that our team is more than well prepared, and the last few days of training have put me in an optimistic mood.”
Pichler said that he had not set a rigid medal target for his first championships with Russia’s women, but that he would feel “very let down” if the team left Ruhpolding, his home town, without a medal.
Pichler’s experience of the Ruhpolding track had transferred to his team, giving them the feeling of competing at home, double Olympic gold medalist Olga Zaitseva said Tuesday.
“Here there’s a feeling, almost as if we’d come home and that for us it really is a home World Championships. Thank Wolfgang for that,” she said.
“He’s acquainted us with all the climbs and slopes on the track, and how we need to work.”
Pichler is an acclaimed biathlon coach best known for training Anna Carin Olafsson to Sweden’s first Olympic biathlon gold medal in 46 years at the 2006 Turin games.
The Bavarian Alpine resort of Ruhpolding is hosting the world championships for the fourth time, and the first time since 1996.
They run through March 11.
