Uncategorized – Biathlon Integrity Unit

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Summer of Mental Health

This summer, the Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU) is turning up the volume on mental health with our new campaign: Summer of Mental Health. In partnership with the International Biathlon Union (IBU), we’re building on the momentum sparked by the launch of our Mental Health Working Group back in January — and we’re just getting started.

Mental health isn’t a side note — it’s the foundation of elite performance. Whether you’re an athlete, coach, or part of a support team, mental wellbeing matters. This campaign is about championing that truth and bringing it to the forefront of the biathlon world. Ultimately, we believe that good mental health is the key to good performance.

What’s Coming?
Expect an energizing mix of expert podcast interviews, powerful social media content, and candid tips from athletes and coaches who’ve been in the pressure cooker and come out stronger. We’ll continue the conversations sparked by biathletes like Jessica Jislova and Marie-Laure Brunet — and introduce new voices ready to share their journeys.

Biathletes are often up against intense psychological pressure. It can come from within or from the expectations of coaches, fans, and the media. It’s time to talk openly about that and make sure no one has to face it alone.

Together, the IBU and BIU are on a mission to make sure every member of our sport’s community has access to meaningful, tailored mental health support. We’re fostering a culture where holistic wellbeing isn’t just acknowledged — it’s celebrated.

The Summer of Mental Health is here – stay tuned for stories, tools, and inspiration that will help our entire biathlon family thrive — mentally, emotionally, and professionally.

BIU publishes Annual Report 2024-25

The Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU) has published its Annual Report for the period from May 2024 to April 2025, a year of deeper cooperation with integrity bodies, law enforcement agencies and National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs).

As Louise Reilly, Chair of the BIU Board, put it in her introductory message: “The past year has underlined more than ever the importance of collaboration in maintaining the integrity of biathlon. While the BIU continues to act with independence and purpose, we recognise that tackling complex and transnational threats, whether doping, safeguarding failures, or corruption, requires integrated action across systems and institutions.”

Greg McKenna, Head of the BIU, added: “Our collaboration with National Anti-Doping Organisations has strengthened further this year. Through improved test distribution planning and data sharing, athlete coverage has expanded, reducing duplication and enhancing trust in the anti-doping system. Our testing strategy is reinforced by the systematic storage of samples for future reanalysis, an important tool in long-term deterrence and enforcement.”

The report provides a comprehensive overview of the BIU’s operational activities, including key facts and figures. Out of a total budget of €2.76 million (up from €1.97 million last year), 45% was spent on Sample Collection & Analysis, 28% on Legal Support, 15% on Operations, 8% on Prevention, and 3% on the BIU Board.

Key Anti-Doping Statistics

The BIU collected 1,863 samples (up from 1,293 last year), with 65% collected out of competition. A total of 381 athletes (compared with 338 last year) from 34 nations were tested. The BIU also continued its collaboration with the Development Department of the International Biathlon Union (IBU), providing integrity sessions for all levels of the Coach Education courses offered by the IBU Academy. Besides basic anti-doping and safeguarding education, the focus was on the coaches’ own wellbeing and mental health, as well as helping athletes through difficult situations.

Education Initiatives

Education and communication continue to play a crucial role in the BIU’s activities, with 12 educational events (outreaches, workshops and seminars) taking place in the course of the year, covering four main topics: anti-doping, safeguarding, rules and governance.

The BIU used a wide variety of media to communicate its important anti-doping and integrity messages to the biathlon family and beyond, including posters, brochures, videos, podcasts and, for the first time, a series of website blogs. Notable were the 450,000 views of its 89 Instagram posts during the year, an increase of 100,000 on last year.

Other Highlights

VAST: The BIU launched a pilot project exploring the use of voice analysis screening technology (VAST), an AI-enabled tool designed to support the detection of potential doping-related risks. While the sample size was modest and implementation challenges emerged, the project demonstrated encouraging potential.

Rules Review Project: As part of its commitment to continuous improvement, the BIU maintained an active and ongoing review process for all its regulatory frameworks. A recent example of this process in action is the refinement of the athlete whereabouts requirements.

Supporting the IBU Congress: At the IBU Congress in Serbia, the BIU supported accreditation and voting procedures, including overseeing the pilot use of an electronic voting system provided by Votebox. This session marked the first step in the rollout of the new NF Governance Framework, aimed at strengthening standards and consistency across the biathlon family.

National Federations Governance Framework: During the 2024–25 reporting period, the BIU and IBU formally launched the National Federation (NF) Governance Framework, an initiative designed to embed robust governance principles across the biathlon family.

Focus on Whereabouts: The BIU continued to prioritise the athlete whereabouts system as a critical component in safeguarding clean sport. The BIU supported the IBU in becoming one of just two international sports federations taking part in Safe Harbour, a collaborative project aimed at strengthening the response mechanism for safeguarding in European sports.

CAS Ruling—Anders Besseberg: In 2024, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) delivered its decision in the case of former IBU President Anders Besseberg, confirming multiple breaches of the IBU Integrity Code during his tenure. The ruling reaffirmed the IBU’s and BIU’s shared commitment to transparency, accountability, and the highest standards of integrity in the governance of biathlon.

The full BIU Annual Report for May 2024 to April 2025 can be found here.

New BIU Integrity Ambassador Pascale Paradis

Canada’s Pascale Paradis was recently appointed as a BIU integrity ambassador, joining existing ambassadors USA’s Chloe Levins and Slovenia’s Lovro Planko.

Pascale joined us in our latest podcast interview to discuss her role as an ambassador, and what integrity means to her.

Beginning with her introduction to biathlon through her parents’ love of sport, and skiing in particular, Pascale discussed her reasons for wanting to move on to become an Integrity Ambassador, in what will be just her second year on the IBU World Cup circuit.

She also explained how she thinks she can make a difference as a BIU Ambassador, by acting as a link between the BIU and athletes, and underlined the need for continuing vigilance in response to those that might protest that biathlon has no doping or integrity problems.

Pascale ended the interview with the following message to her fellow biathletes: “Let’s look out for each other. Sport is really hard and the pressure can be really intense, but I think we’re stronger when we support each other”.

Click here to listen to the full interview.

Unintentional Doping

The World Anti-Doping Agency’s Taskforce on Unintentional Doping has invited everyone, including athletes and support personnel, to contribute to a study on unintentional doping, with a deadline for submissions of 23rd June, 2025.
As part of the BIU’s contribution to this important topic, we spoke to Sue Backhouse, a UK academic and anti-doping expert who is a member of the taskforce, about what we mean by unintentional doping, and what are its consequences.

Sue is Professor of Psychology and Nutrition, Head of the Centre for Human Performance and Director of Research for Sport and Exercise Science, Leisure and Tourism at Leeds Beckett University.

In the interview, she began by explaining that there is presently no universally-accepted definition of unintentional doping, a predicament that the taskforce is seeking to address. Likewise, no figures exist for the proportion of anti-doping violations that are attributable to unintentional doping, albeit one limited study found that about 8% of adverse analytical findings were unintentional.

Sue offered some great tips to athletes to avoid unintentional doping, including avoiding uncertified weight-loss and muscle-building supplements, along with meat products from certain countries which have been identified by WADA.

To listen to the interview, click here.

IBU and BIU Welcome Final Swiss Federal Tribunal Ruling in Ustyugov Case

Salzburg, Austria – May 22, 2025 – The International Biathlon Union (IBU) and the Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU) welcome the decision of the Swiss Federal Tribunal to reject the appeals of former Russian biathlete Evgeny Ustyugov. These final rulings uphold the previous decisions of the IBU Anti-Doping Hearing Panel and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), confirming sanctions for anti-doping rule violations.

Mr. Ustyugov was sanctioned based on abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport and evidence from the Moscow Laboratory Information Management System. The upheld decisions result in the disqualification of all his competitive results from January 24, 2010, through the end of the 2013/2014 season — explicitly including his results from the Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 Olympic Games — and a four-year period of ineligibility.

The decisions of the Swiss Federal Tribunal represent the final instance of appeal. With this ruling, the verdicts of the IBU Anti-Doping Hearing Panel and the Court of Arbitration for Sport now become legally binding. It is now the responsibility of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board to decide on the reallocation of medals from the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Greg McKenna, Head of the BIU said:

“These decisions from the Swiss Federal Tribunal brings finality to a long-running case and stands as an important step in upholding clean sport. While we regret the time it has taken to reach this point, the ruling reinforces the principle that doping violations will be identified and sanctioned, however complex the process may be. We continue to encourage all institutions involved in sports arbitration to work towards more timely resolutions, so that the integrity of competition is preserved and clean athletes are protected.”

NF Governance Working Group

The first whole group meeting of the newly established Governance Consultation Working Group was held on 15^th May 2025. The group has been created by the IBU and BIU to gain National Federation (NF) input and expertise for the Biathlon Governance Framework – a series of requirements for NFs to achieve high standards of governance across biathlon.

As part of this process, a group of highly experienced individuals has been brought together, with a focus on gaining different geographical NF perspectives. All NFs were invited to nominate members of the working group and provide their input. We are also delighted to have an athlete representative as part of the group to ensure that the athlete voice is heard.

The working group is formed of:

Anastasiya Merkushyna, Ukrainian biathlete and BIU Athlete Ambassador since 2021

Barbara Petrahn, Secretary General, Hungarian Ski Federation

Christian Scherer, Treasurer, IBU Executive Board; Secretary General, Austrian Ski Federation

David Windsor, Chairman, Biathlon Australia

Kalle Lähdesmäki, Former President, Finnish Biathlon Association

Mike Walker, Chair of Board of Directors, Biathlon Canada

The group has provided feedback on the BIU’s proposed governance requirements, offering valuable expertise about the realities of NFs. This feedback will be taken into account when finalising the Biathlon Governance Framework and will inform decisions about the project going forward. The group will continue its work over the next months to ensure NFs are represented in the Biathlon Governance Framework.

The importance of safeguarding for NFs

The importance of safeguarding for NFs

In our latest podcast interview, we spoke to safeguarding expert Nicola Bithell about the role of NFs in implementing safeguarding in sport.

Nicola is head of safeguarding at Accrington Stanley Women FC, which competes in English football’s North West Women’s Regional League, but the majority of her experience has been gained from her police career, in which she has led departments that investigated high-profile and position of trust abuse.

She also chairs multi-agency public protection arrangements managing high-risk perpetrators coming out of prison into the community.

Some members of the biathlon family might believe that the sport does not have a problem with abuse, but, referring to a recent survey of over 10,000 respondents from sports across a range of European countries, Nicola argued that no sport is immune.

Among other statistics, the survey found that in their sports:

· 65% of respondents had suffered psychological abuse

· 44% had suffered physical abuse

· 20% had suffered contact sexual abuse.

These figures are “absolutely startling,” Nicola said, going on to discuss what measures National Federations can and should take to ensure stamp out abuse – both for their own sakes and, more importantly, for the safety of their athletes.

To listen to the interview, click here.

Deciding to retire: what comes next?

Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen is a former biathlon world champion and winner of three overall IBU World Cups, who retired from competing in 2020. How did she make the difficult decision to retire, and how has she navigated her post-competitive career? In our latest podcast interview, we spoke to Kaisa to find out

She had already been thinking of retirement for five years before she finally took the decision in 2020, she tells us. As an athlete competing for a relatively small biathlon nation, before each of those seasons she had to make a judgement about whether the ever-changing team around her was strong enough to help her achieve her goals.

In her last season, Kaisa’s decision to retire was actually hastened by the onset of the Covid-19 epidemic, which resulted in the cancellation of the last event of the season, meaning that she was suddenly faced with the reality that her last race was to be on the following day, instead of a week later, as she had expected and planned for.

Covid also meant that her post-competitive career plans had to go on hold. However, she had the foresight to found her own promotional company before retirement, and since then she has gradually built up a successful career as a sports media pundit and coach.

Kaisa’s message to biathletes considering retirement is summed up by advice she herself received: go on for as long as you have the passion – and then for one season more, so that you will know the time is right and will have no regrets!

For the full interview, click here.

The IOC’s new Safeguarding Directory

The IOC has launched a new, interactive Safeguarding Directory, a user-friendly tool designed to help athletes and their entourages quickly locate and connect with Safeguarding Officers from National Olympic Committees (NOCs), International Federations (IFs) and many other organisations worldwide.

Whether you have safeguarding questions, require safeguarding support or need to report a safeguarding concern, you can use the Directory to help find a safeguarding officer who will support you and address your specific needs.

The Safeguarding Directory includes information and contact details for over 130 certified safeguarding officers across the world, all of whom have successfully completed the IOC Certificate: Safeguarding Officer in Sport programme.

Using the Directory is easy. To find a safeguarding officer, select your language, country, safeguarding service, and organisation type or name, and then select the best option for you. Safeguarding officers who meet your criteria are then displayed together with their contact details.

The launch of the IOC’s Safeguarding Directory comes as the Biathlon Integrity Unit works to raise awareness of this important topic in the sport of biathlon, and to combat abuse in our sport.

Click here to find your nearest Safeguarding Officer.

Click here to report a safeguarding concern directly to the BIU.

Biathlon Integrity Unit Acknowledges CAS Decision in Case of Anders Besseberg

14 March 2025 – The Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU) acknowledges the award issued by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the case concerning former International Biathlon Union (IBU) President, Anders Besseberg. The CAS ruling imposes a lifetime ban from all future elected or appointed positions within the sport due to severe breaches of integrity.

The ruling establishes that Mr Besseberg engaged in prolonged unethical conduct, including the receipt of inappropriate gifts and benefits, and the failure to prevent or challenge unethical practices. The CAS Panel found that:

• The IBU’s Integrity Code and disciplinary rules remained applicable to Mr Besseberg post-tenure, given his role as an organ of the IBU, thus allowing for the imposition of sanctions even after he left office.

• The charges concerning watches, hunting trips, and the provision of prostitution services were substantiated and constituted integrity breaches. The Panel confirmed that Mr Besseberg had accepted valuable watches and hunting trips, while the determining factor in the prostitution-related breaches was the direct link between Mr Besseberg’s use of these services with his official duties as IBU President.

• Mr Besseberg failed in his duty to intervene in unethical conduct, further breaching the integrity standards of the IBU.

Considering the seriousness of the violations and the lack of remorse shown by Mr Besseberg, the CAS Panel imposed a lifetime ban from all official biathlon roles.

The CAS ruling also highlights concerns over the fact that such unethical behaviour was allowed to persist for an extended period without intervention.

This underscores the importance of continued vigilance in safeguarding the integrity of the sport. While these failings occurred prior to recent governance reforms, the BIU now provides independent oversight and maintains strict integrity measures to prevent misconduct of this nature from recurring.

Greg McKenna, Head of the BIU, stated: “This decision sends a clear message that unethical behaviour at the highest levels of sport will not be tolerated. The BIU remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding the integrity of biathlon and ensuring that those in positions of authority are held to the highest ethical standards. We recognise the lessons from this case and working with the IBU, will continue to enhance governance mechanisms to prevent any recurrence of such conduct.”

The BIU reaffirms its mission to maintain the integrity of the sport and will work closely with the IBU and other stakeholders to further strengthen its governance framework.

For further information, please contact:

Biathlon Integrity Unit Email: [email protected]

Website: www.biathlonintegrity.com

CAS 2023/O/9541

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Sue offered some great tips to athletes to avoid unintentional doping, including avoiding uncertified weight-loss and muscle-building supplements, along with meat products from certain countries which have been identified by WADA. To listen to the interview, click here.

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Sue offered some great tips to athletes to avoid unintentional doping, including avoiding uncertified weight-loss and muscle-building supplements, along with meat products from certain countries which have been identified by WADA.

To listen to the interview, click here.