Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian Internal Troops Alexander Tikhonov, who holds nine patents for the development and improvement of sports small arms, made an angry statement in which he attacked the behavior and governance of his country in recent years, Blitz Sport reported.
„I'm tired of all this sloppiness. We failed ourselves, and we blame others. They didn't give us this, they didn't give us that... They didn't give our Olympians phones in Milan – They did the right thing. How long will we walk around like beggars with our hands outstretched? On TV they say that we are a great country.
They are lying! Where is this greatness?
It is only our fault. We have become lackeys, and we should be masters“, the 78-year-old legendary biathlete told Metaratings.ru in connection with the fact that the IOC did not give sponsored smartphones to Russian athletes at the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.
At the same time, Tikhonov also made sharp criticism of the government of Russia in recent decades.
„For the last 30 years, nothing positive has happened.
In our country, they are constantly banning, taking away or closing something. WhatsApp no longer works, Viber - too. They want to ban Telegram too. During Tsarist Russia, mail was delivered faster by horses than it is now by airplanes. We, as a society, are probably heading in that direction too – to breed horses. The most interesting thing is that decisions are being made, but no one is interested in how the people will react, how people live. Apart from bans, I don’t see anything else,” Tikhonov said in a statement via Sport24.ru.
Alexander Tikhonov is one of the greatest legends of world biathlon. He has four gold and one silver Olympic medals, as well as 11 gold, four silver and two bronze medals from world championships. In the period 1996-2008, he was president of the Union of Biathletes in Russia, and then for another two years he was vice-president of the organization.