Exactly. If he talks to the press, they are not happy with the answers he gives them. If he doesn't talk to them, they are not happy that he doesn't talk to them.
I think the German coaches that the Russians had, like Groß and Pichler were very good for them and they were happy to assist, to speak on behalf of the athletes and to be fair and to protect the athletes (without looking like homers or cheerleaders). It's a pity that neither of those was kept for a longer time. Neither Groß nor Pichler have said that they saw anything suspicious in the team during their times as coaches, and they said this not only while they were coaching the Russians but also once they left, and Pichler especially was very vocal 10-12 years ago. Pichler was the head women's coach from 2011-2014. The Vilukhina was stripped of the silver medal in the sprint and the relay, while Pichler was the coach. Pichler has repeatedly said that if he knew that one of his athletes was/were doping, he would have spoken out and would have alerted the federation, IBU and anti-doping authorities.
Loginov was caught back in 2013. He served his suspension and he's been back since the start of the the 2016/2017 season. The only time crybabies like Fourcade and the Boe brothers say anything is when Loginov beats them and when he wins a race.
I'm not sure about Groß, but for Pichler the writing was on the wall when they started creating the 'alternative team' for the Olympics based around the Romanova/Starykh group and moved Vilukhina from his group into that one. Whatever Pichler may or may not know is a question for another time, I think he was a victim of the politics around Russian biathlon and was squeezed out because his methods and intentions were not popular. He has thrived on isolating talent young and pushing it through the system, as he has been doing in Sweden recently with the Öberg sisters.
But in Russia, especially a Russia building up to a home Olympics, there was never even a thought of accepting some washout results now to reap benefits later. Athletes who didn't score strong points were to be axed. He saw the 2013 Junior World Championships, where a Russian youth trio of Kaisheva, Mironova and Slivko laid waste to all comers, with Kaisheva in particular being dominant, having already gone big and competed on a level with Preuß and Dahlmeier in the Youth Olympics, and asked if he could have her in his training group with the World Cup squad, because he saw real potential in her. He was told that juniors would train with juniors, and had no place in the elite team, now please concentrate on getting Ekaterina Shumilova World Championships ready plzkthx. The mishandling of talents has been a major problem for Russian biathlon for several years now, and a lot of the problem is competing bureaucrats trying to put forward their regions' talent for prestige purposes. There was a huge furore pre-season when the team whittled down its 50 or so athletes per gender from camp to around 20 who would compete for the national team, with the rest returning to their regions; various regional bosses protested and insisted their talents be included. The problem was: lots of them were preparing their athletes to peak for those selection races, so they could get the prestige, whereas the main team coaches wanted their athletes to peak for the actual World Cup season, so of course they'd do worse as against peaking athletes!
This cycle of selection races has been a disaster for the team as it has prioritised mediocre athletes with experience in the selection races over younger prospects who aren't peaking and could do better outside of them. Athletes are shifted between levels and forced to race during periods others are undertaking competition breaks. Tatiana Akimova was run into the ground and hasn't come back from a baby break, while Olga Podchufarova has retired young from overtraining. Evgeniya Pavlova didn't even get to the World Cup until 25, and was then worked into the ground in a single season. Kaisheva and, after her, Mironova, have been bounced from training group to training group and through the levels for 3-4 years before they finally get an extended run in the team, and even then, just after they start to show flashes of what they're capable of they get run into the ground.
The other problem with the cycle of selection races is that the relentless battle royale around selection is an environment which fosters the possibility of doping even outside the central core of the team. I readily believe that Ekaterina Iourieva, the second time around, was not involved in the centralised doping. She wasn't in the McLaren docs if I remember rightly. She was just somebody who was in last chance saloon on the fringes of the team and prepared to do what it took. And, it also has an impact on the coaches. Vitaly Noritsyn trained the women in 2016-7 when Akimova was successful, and then was replaced due to disappointing results by Konovalov. He threw out a bunch of athletes who went well under Noritsyn like Kaisheva, bringing in shooting specialists, but in turn was jettisoned after a year due to poor results and, because the IBU Cup team was doing well and athletes like Kaisheva were developing well, the IBU Cup coach took over. His name? Vitaly Noritsyn. He kept his job for more than a year thanks to some good results especially from World Cup débutantes and younger prospects like Pavlova and Mironova getting them their 6th starter back (later lost due to Nations Cup points gained by Vasileva, who is suspended for ADAMS violations), but he's now up for the chop, and who's proposed as his replacement? IBU Cup coach Konovalov.
This is the problem for them: there's too much meddling from above. The IBU Cup coaches tend to fare better because they can get on with improving the athletes they have at their disposal. The World Cup coaches are not just pressured to get results, and also to get them from the right people. At Sochi, there was clearly some internalised, institutionalised doping. That much is undisputable. I find it interesting how most of the samples remained for the women but were all missing for the more successful men's team, definitely. But the current set-up is too siloed, too broken up into too many small isolated segments, for me. I don't think there's institutionalised doping in the team at present - but I think the structure is also likely too fragmented for there to be sufficient control either. Compared to Norway, Germany or France, where there is very much an extended national team and the national calendar is largely targeted at developing young athletes and will come via intermediary steps of competing in a quasi national team in the junior events or the Alpencup, the Kubok Rossii is almost a legit professional minor league, with athletes of all ages, lots of veterans and various teams competing not as a grounds for development, but competing to win. Which may entail taking shortcuts to do so, especially for older athletes who aren't likely to compete internationally and who need the paycheck.
You would never see the Russians do what Germany did with Neuner, Gössner, Dahlmeier, Preuß, Weidel or Riethmüller, entering them as juniors when still youth-qualified at the Junior World Championships, to see how they fare against the next level up, but without pressure of expectation. The Russians would be entering those youths with the express purpose of winning medals against the youth field. You would never see the Russians do what France did with Braisaz, letting her compete at the World Cup for a season and a half using up a World Cup entry spot with no concern of where she finishes, letting her withdraw from pursuits if tired after the sprint, holding her out of relays and so on. All this means is a litany of Russian supertalents who went nowhere, and have lots of experience beating up on the lower levels but are outclassed at the higher level. The World Cup is a step up from the IBU Cup pace-wise, and even those athletes that do adjust often take a few races. But with the trigger-happy Russian selectors, you don't have a few races to adapt before somebody else is burning up the IBU Cup so you need ot make way for them. This definitely fosters an environment that encourages the use of doping to first gain a place and then retain it. The history of Russian biathlon is littered with dopers, and it is littered with victims of politics. Many fall under both headings.
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