Participants of the Sochi round of Biathlon World Cup are dissatisfied with organization

The biathletes, who take part in the Eighth Round of the Biathlon World Cup that has started today in Sochi, complain about organization and the procedure of customs clearance.

On March 7-10, the strongest biathletes are taking part in the World Cup Biathlon in Sochi. On March 7, the programme of races at the "Laura" was opened by individual races.

The Swedish biathlete Ted Armgren spoke about problems at the customs. "I'm for the first in Russia, but I'm already tired of being here. It all started with my failure to pass the customs with my rifle. Then, I occurred without accreditation, and the like. Eventually, I came to the hotel a few hours after the other athletes," the "Sports.ru" quotes Armgren's entry on his website.

Dissatisfaction with the lengthy customs clearance was expressed also by the Lithuanian biathlete Natalia Kochergina. "In Russia, we were met by a nightmare; everything was unorganized, just a mess. We arrived at seven in the evening to the airport and stood for five hours stuck in a queue to check our rifles," the athlete wrote in her page on the Facebook.

According to organizers, the vast majority of teams had clearly drawn up all the documents. However, some athletes brought rifles without marking or with the data on other biathletes. "In good, we'd have sent them home; however, we made concessions and documented the weapons in the manual mode as quickly as possible," - said a customs officer.