2024-02-28 19:53:32
Dmitry Shamaev achieved success on the track, but had difficulty accepting the harsh European realities.
In recent years, there has been a mass migration of Russian biathletes to Romania. In a short period of time, five of our athletes fled there at once, among whom was the future European Championship medalist Dmitry Shamaev. He achieved the result he dreamed of throughout his career, but the realities of life in a European country turned out to be far from ideal.
Why did he leave Russia?
Shamaev showed great promise at the junior level, becoming a two-time world champion in his age category. In Russian biathlon, this does not at all guarantee success at the World Cup and generally getting into the main team of the country, but it still gives a pleasant prospect for the future. And yet, most of our talented biathletes have proven themselves in one way or another at the next stage of their careers. At least they managed to make it into the national team and competed at the World Cup with varying degrees of success.
For a long time, Dmitry did not succeed. At the Russian Cup and Championship he won medals, which in theory might give him a chance to shine in front of the coaching staff of the national team. Nevertheless, he was never provided with adequate opportunities, as a result of which Shamaev began to think regarding alternative options for continuing his career.
And Shamaev just fell into a new trend in Russian biathlon, which consisted of moving to Romania, where there were very few talented athletes. The federation’s leadership was looking for a way to strengthen the national team, so the strong Russians looked like a cool option. Before Shamaev, Anastasia Tolmacheva, Anatoly Oskin and Elena Chirkova left for Romania, and together with Dmitry, Natalya Ushkina also went to Eastern Europe.
Dmitry Shamaev / Photo: © Florian Frison/Dppi / Keystone Press Agency / Global Look Press
“There are many problems in Europe”
Shamaev traveled to Romania in the status of a famous person. True, this was mainly not related to biathlon. The fact is that in 2018 Dmitry saved a man’s life. At the end of the summer, he was at Astana airport and helped a man who suddenly became ill. As it turned out later, everything happened in the security line. Passengers were preparing to fly out of the Kazakh capital when Shamayev heard a scream and saw a man falling.
He quickly realized that the man was having an epileptic seizure. Despite the fact that Dmitry had not dealt with such situations in the past, he was the first to approach the victim and turn him on his side so that he would not suffocate. In the end, the man’s life was saved, and the Kazakh press actively wrote regarding the noble deed of the Russian biathlete.
Shamaev, of course, was not once morest the little fame that fell on him, but at the same time he wanted to prove himself directly on the biathlon tracks. After joining the Romanian national team, nothing worked out for him for a long time, but at the 2024 European Championship he had a long-awaited breakthrough. In the pursuit race, he broke through from 16th place to second and took the long-awaited medal that he had always dreamed of.
Despite this, Dmitry admitted in an interview with Match TV that training conditions in Europe are inferior to Russian ones, so in the summer he comes to his native Udmurtia and conducts training there.
— In Romania, conditions are not the most favorable. There are a lot of tourists there who drive cars and walk along the roller skating track, so every training session might be the last. Plus there are bears running around the streets, just like our dogs. That’s why I don’t really like it there. This year I decided to stay in Russia and look for more interesting terrain and stadiums. Not everything is so smooth and wonderful in the Romanian team, you need to understand that this is still not a leading country in biathlon, there are many problems there, but overall I’m happy,” Shamaev admitted.
Obviously, our biathlete cannot say everything very frankly, but even from these formulations it is clear that European biathlon is in many ways inferior to Russian biathlon both in terms of preparation and in terms of financial conditions. Perhaps only Norway and Germany are somehow capable of matching Russia. Shamaev made his choice. Yes, he was disappointed in some aspects of life, but at the same time he realized his career goal.
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