Guns, skis and corruption: Biathlon
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2021
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Three years ago, a dramatic raid at the headquarters of a popular winter sports blew open a scandal at the International Biathlon Union. The former president, Anders Besseberg, has been accused of receiving gifts in return for favours. These are charges he denies. What happens to sporting integrity when those at the top are accused of corruption?
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Guest: David Walsh, Chief sports writer at The Sunday Times.
Host: David Aaronovitch.
Clips used: IBU and Euronews.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Go back to your constituencies and prepare for how to win an election. |
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| 0:23.0 | Follow now wherever you get your podcast to never miss an episode and together we'll learn |
| 0:28.8 | how to win an election. |
| 0:34.3 | What do you know about Biathlon? |
| 0:36.7 | It's a winter sport where first you ski cross-country like the Clappers, |
| 0:41.1 | then you do the second part of the buy and shoot at targets. |
| 0:44.8 | Then repeat. |
| 0:49.7 | The Austrian police issued a statement and said that they were concerned about banned substances |
| 0:55.4 | and they also said they were investigating the allegation that gifts had been received |
| 1:01.4 | by people high up in the IBU. |
| 1:04.4 | The IBU, the International Biathlon Union, has been in the news recently, |
| 1:08.8 | not for the athleticism of its competitors, |
| 1:11.4 | or the sports of recent popularity on TV, |
| 1:14.7 | but the affairs of its top administrator. |
| 1:18.6 | This is a story where without governance, things can go radically wrong. |
| 1:23.4 | And the reason why things went radically wrong is that lots of people have ways of doing business |
| 1:28.4 | that wouldn't be 100% right. |
... |
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