Biathlon: Norwegian Besseberg, former strongman of the discipline, sentenced to three years and one month in prison

The Norwegian Anders Besseberg, a strong man in world biathlon for a quarter of a century, was sentenced Friday by his country's courts to three years and one month in prison for aggravated corruption between 2009 and 2018. Boss of the International Biathlon Federation ( IBU) from 1993 to 2018, Anders Besseberg, 78, was found guilty of accepting luxury watches, prostitutes and hunting trips by Russian officials in particular.

“I am of course disappointed and surprised by this decision and some of the judges’ reasoning. I am appealing immediately,” Besseberg said in court, after the reading of the judgment, which lasted three hours. “The defendant betrayed the trust attached to his position at the IBU by accepting these benefits,” judge Vidar Toftøy-Lohne told the Buskerud district court, located 60 km west of Oslo. . The prosecution welcomed this decision.

“A lot of money circulates in high-level international sport. The federation manages substantial financial assets and makes decisions that are important for both athletes and the business world,” prosecutor Marianne Djupesland said in a statement. “We hope that this decision can help raise awareness (the public, editor’s note) and will have a preventive effect,” she added.

A conviction also welcomed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), based in Montreal, which considers the verdict “as a warning to other administrators who threaten the integrity of sport”. WADA recalls that the affair broke out thanks to an investigation started in 2016 by its intelligence service based on information provided by a confidential source. The prosecution had requested three years and seven months in prison and a fine of one million crowns (more than 88,000 euros).

The court did not impose a fine but ordered Besseberg to return the gifts worth 1.4 million crowns. “Even though I received expensive gifts and was invited by many people to go hunting, I must emphasize that I never allowed myself to be bribed,” he told the court during his trial, according to media reports.

At the helm of the IBU when the institutionalized doping scandal in Russian sport broke out, notably at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, the Norwegian was initially accused of having allowed himself to be bribed to hide cases of Russian doping . But that part of the charges was later dropped. In Norway, it is enough to receive undue favors, without necessarily exchanging compensation, for the offense of corruption to be constituted.

According to the commission of inquiry launched by Olle Dahlin, Mr. Besseberg's successor at the head of the IBU, the Norwegian had used all his weight to grant, despite the revelations on doping, the organization of the 2021 Worlds in Tyumen in Siberia. These championships were finally reallocated to Pokljuka (Slovenia).