Team coaches are to blame for Russia's worst-ever biathlon world championships, last week, a former trainer told RIA Novosti on Monday.
Russia's biathletes came away from Ruhpolding, Germany, with two bronze medals after entering the week as one of the favorites to top the medal table.
The flop eclipsed the 1995 disappointment in Anterselve, Italy, when Pavel Muslimov's silver in the 10 kilometer sprint was Russia's only medal, and hit despite 27 World Cup podium finishes for Russians this season.
"This season has gone quite well, but what happened at the world championships? All the teams prepared specifically for them, skipping World Cup stages and making other sacrifices to ensure arriving at the world championships in peak form. But for us it was the complete opposite," said Vladimir Alikin, former head coach of the Russian men's team.
"Officials and the coaching staff must take the entire blame, of course. They prepared the athletes," he said.
Olga Vilukhina and Anton Shipulin won the medals for Russia in the women's and men's pursuit, respectively.
The biggest let down for the Russians was the performance of the women's relay team, three of whom the 2010 Olympic gold in Vancouver. The team finished seventh, more than a minute and a half behind the victorious Germans.
Wolfgang Pichler, coach of the women’s team, called the result their “worst race of the year” and criticized Olympic gold medalist Anna Bogaly-Titovets for missing three targets, which incurred her three penalty loops.
But the German coach came in for criticism of his own on Monday.
"Our team lost a lot of time skiing, and this is a result of Wolfgang Pichler's work," said Valery Zakharov, the personal coach of team member Svetlana Sleptsova. "That's just the way he prepared the team, what else is there to say?"
Russia head coach Valery Polkhovsky called the results a tough lesson.
“You have to take lessons from ... the mistakes. The most important thing is to become wiser and more experienced,” Polkhovsky said on the Russian Biathlon Union website on the weekend.
