Billionaire Russian politician Mikhail Prokhorov will leave his job as head of the Russian Biathlon Union if it interferes with his political activities, he said Sunday.
Prokhorov came third in last week’s presidential elections, officially with around eight percent of the vote, running on a liberal platform.
Prokhorov, who also owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said the pressures of the election campaign meant he had neglected his duties with the biathlon federation.
“For three months, while the election campaign was going on, I paid almost no attention to what was happening to our team,” he said on his blog.
“This is my failing, my fault as president of the Russian Biathlon Union. I’m not trying to shift the blame onto anyone else.”
He called his absence a “fiasco” and said he could not rule out stepping aside.
“If I conclude that I am no longer in the condition to effectively combine the management of biathlon with politics, I don’t rule out resigning from the post at the end of the year.”
Prokhorov, who made his fortune in banking and mining, has been president of the Russian Biathlon Union since 2008.
The national biathlon team finished the world championships in Germany on Sunday with two bronze medals, its worst-ever showing at a world championships, excluding the smaller-scale events held in Olympic years.
