Season 2021/2022 confirmed at the EB meeting

The Executive Board (EB) met for the 158th time on 9-10 September 2021. The IBU has announced that as of the time being the 2021/22 season will go ahead as scheduled. The IBU will keep its trimester approach to confirm events and make adjustments when needed to protect the health of athletes and event participants during the COVID-19 crisis.

Following the expert advice of its Medical Advisory Group, the IBU will rely on vaccinations for its events. The IBU notes how the vaccination of athletes and officials will be critical to the safety of events and urged all those who have not done so already to get vaccinated.

Event participants who have not been vaccinated, or have not recently recovered from COVID-19 will have to provide several PCR tests at their own cost to enter and stay in the event bubble. The IBU will work with its event organisers (OCs) to provide local/regional testing stations for unvaccinated participants, but will no longer travel with its own mobile labs to the event sites. In addition, the IBU has decided that any IBU officials (Executive Board, Staff, Referees etc.) traveling must be fully vaccinated.

The IBU will keep working closely with the Medical Advisory Group and OCs to ensure events are held safely. Detailed Covid-19 event guidelines will be published in the coming weeks to inform all stakeholders about the event setup and rules. Depending on future COVID-19 developments, the guidelines may be updated during the season. In addition, the IBU will always follow the governments’ COVID-19 rules and regulations.

The EB further decided to create an IBU Organising Committee Award for Excellence in Sustainability. The purpose of the award is to further promote the concept and activities in the area of sustainability, as well as to share examples of best practices throughout the biathlon family. The meeting closed with a joint board meeting of the IBU and Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU), in which the BIU updated the federation on current topics such as investigations into the Moscow Laboratory LIMS database, updates to the Integrity Code, follow-up work on the findings of the External Review Commissions and the BIU’s strategic approach to fight doping.