Four Russian biathletes suspected of committing doping violations, implicated as part of an earlier World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation, have been named.
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The Russian Biathlon Union (RBU) official site announced that Alexandr Pechenkin and Vitaly Chernyshov, as well as Olympic gold medalists Svetlana Sleptsova and Evgeny Ustyugov, are all facing allegations of doping.
All of the biathletes have called time on their careers with the exception of Pechenkin, who neither trains with nor represents the Russian national team, it is reported.
On Thursday, the IBU said it had notified the Russian Union and warned its biathletes of an anti-doping rules violation, to which it had a fortnight to respond.
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"The Russian Biathlon Union and the affected athletes now have 14 days to respond to the notification. If the anti-doping rule violation is not accepted as such, the cases will officially be brought to the IBU Anti-Doping Hearing Panel," the association said in a statement.
Ustyugov, who twice clinched Olympic gold for Russia at Vancouver 2010 and in Sochi 2014, after which he announced his retirement, expressed his bewilderment at claims that have arisen four years after he quit competition.
“I don’t know anything about this situation yet. Why have these suspicious arisen only now, four years after I ended my career? The probes are kept for eight years, they have the right to open them at any moment,” the 33-year-old said.