Biathlete and sports director Viktor Mamatov has died. Obituary

Viktor Mamatov, one of the most significant figures in Russian sports, died at the age of 86. At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, he was the frontman of the fledgling Soviet biathlon and won two Olympic relay golds. And after finishing his biathlon career, he became a functionary of the highest rank, who was entrusted with preparing the entire Russian winter sports team for the main competitions.

A person who does not know the details of Viktor Mamatov’s biography should be greatly surprised by the exceptional brevity of his sports career: he found himself at the elite level in the second half of the 1960s, and already finished in 1972. Amazing details explain everything.

A guy from the Kemerovo region became interested in biathlon when it was still exotic in the USSR. In the Soviet Union, they were accustomed to developing only species that bring undoubted practical benefits. And biathlon returned after a long break to the Olympic program, only to remain in it forever, only in 1960. Around the same time, when the way to the main competitions was opened for biathletes, young Viktor Mamatov also became interested in them. Like any Siberian, he was good at skiing and practiced it seriously, and his service in the army helped him hone the shooting skills he had mastered in his youth while hunting. But in Novosibirsk, where Mamatov went to study to become a railway engineer, they had not yet heard anything about biathlon. He had to train alone, coming up with his own methods and drawing up a training schedule.

The fact that at the age of 28, Viktor Mamatov, having surpassed competitors from regions that were more advanced in terms of attention to biathlon, still managed to find himself in the Soviet national team, not so long ago, in 1964, which opened the account of Olympic victories thanks to Vladimir Melanin, already looks like a miracle . What makes it doubly magical is the international success that quickly came to Mamatov.

In 1967, he, essentially a newcomer to the team, won the individual race at the World Championships in the GDR, and went to the Olympics in Grenoble, despite the presence of many stars in the Soviet delegation, as its standard bearer.

In the French Alps, Viktor Mamatov failed in the only personal race of the modest biathlon program in that era – that same 20-kilometer individual – due to his own mistake. I chose a late starting group, and the rain that came during the competition turned the ski track into mush and provided a huge advantage to those who left the distance earlier.

But the relay resulted in a triumph for the Soviet four and Mamatov. He was placed in the third, penultimate stage, knowing that the most dangerous among the Norwegians, almost invulnerable in this discipline, Magnar Solberg, who had already won personal gold in Grenoble, would run there. It was assumed that Mamatov would complete his task if he simply did not let him break away too much. The relevance of the idea about it was added by the unsuccessful performance at the starting stage of the future legend Alexander Tikhonov, after which it became clear that there was no escape from the Norwegians. But Viktor Mamatov exceeded the task. It was he, and not Solberg, who was in great shape, who brought the lead to his finisher, Vladimir Gundartsev.

Mamatov went to the Sapporo Olympics in 1972, just his second Olympics, as a veteran with a track record that included three more World Championship relay golds.

And again the Soviet quartet with him at the head, now at the final stage, was the fastest. This time, however, there was no hassle.

And then Viktor Mamatov’s second life began. Few domestic sports officials have as rich a resume as his. Mamatov coached the USSR biathlon team, continuing to achieve victories with it, headed the country’s biathlon federation and supervised all winter sports, while simultaneously working in sports science. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its demand even increased. Viktor Mamatov became the vice-president of the International Biathlon Union immediately after its transformation in 1993 into an independent structure, which finally spun off from modern pentathlon, and in this status he sought to popularize and increase the “specific weight” of the event at the Olympics, where today more than two events are played in biathlon , like half a century ago, and 11 sets of medals.

At home, he was trusted with key positions in key sports departments. And Viktor Mamatov had the opportunity to lead its delegation at the Olympic Games four times in total. For the first time – still Soviet in 1988 in Calgary. The second time he received the honorary mission was in 1992 in Albertville, where the team competed under the flag of the CIS. And in 1998 in Nagano and in 2002 in Salt Lake City, as a rule, calm, laconic and accurate, like his shooting in biathlon, Mamatov’s instructions were already listened to by athletes and coaches representing Russia.

Alexey Dospehov