While Sweden, Norway and Finland have chosen to drop out of the World Cup of skiers for the rest of the year due to the corona pandemic, the biathletes continue to compete.
One explanation is that the International Biathlon Federation (IBU) owns all World Cup competitions, unlike the International Ski Federation (Fis), and thus has a greater opportunity to influence the structure, among other things by competing in fewer locations.
On the long side, it is not as simple.
The organizers or national federations that have been awarded competitions by Fis often do not want to cancel their events, not least due to financial aspects.
"Not so much criticism"
The fact that the Nordic countries have chosen to nob the upcoming competitions in Davos and Dresden has aroused some criticism, but Anders Byström downplays the reactions.
- I do not think we have received so much criticism.
Rather great respect and understanding for the decisions we have made, he says to SVT Sport and continues:
- It is clear that everyone wants us to be there, the product will be worse if we are not.
So market-wise and TV-wise, it is clear that you do not think it is good, but we see it in a larger perspective than that.
We do not only think about finances but we think about the health of the riders and there are no arguments that beat it.
"It takes a lot more"
He finds it difficult to see that the defected national teams could have acted earlier.
- I do not know what could have been done.
We have had regular meetings and looked at the situation.
Fis has a different system than the IBU.
Fis does not own its events but has distributed the events to Switzerland and Germany in this case and then it is up to them if they want to cancel.
And of course you do not do that because they want the events.
It's not that easy.
The investigation is in that case that you would have pressed even earlier that you would have given up your own events, but I think no one wants to do that, says Byström.
Reducing the number of competition venues is therefore difficult at present.
- It should have meant that as a nation or union it is said that "we do not need to arrange this year".
But it takes a lot to do it because there is so much money involved, and you want to stick to your places.
It is not that simple, says Byström.
What Fis can do, he says, is to make the events already distributed as safe as possible.
- They try to do that and I think it's good that they listen to the criticism that has come in.
But you never get away from the trips, we have to travel to be able to compete, Byström says.
CLIP: The doctor: That's why Sweden dropped out
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The doctor: That's why Sweden dropped out Photo: SVT / Bildbyrån