– The rumors were clear and came from many sources, Max Cobb said in court when Besseberg’s relationship with prostitutes again became a topic in court. Earlier in the trial, Besseberg was pressed hard about the offer of prostitutes. Several of the charges in the trial against Besseberg concern prostitution. He is charged with gross corruption, but pleads not guilty after the indictment. On Wednesday, Cobb was a witness in the trial against Besseberg. He was a board member of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) when the police campaigned against Besseberg in April 2018. Today he is secretary general of the IBU. – There were always rumors that organizers gave hunting trips and prostitutes. In Russia, something was going on all the time and every day, Cobb said in court. – Did you observe that there were prostitutes at IBU events, asked the prosecutor. – It is very difficult to say whether people are prostitutes or not since we never saw them in action. But what I can say is that over several decades there were rumors about Besseberg’s behavior at these conventions where prostitutes were involved, Cobb said. Previously, Cobb was also a long-time leader in American biathlon. Besseberg has made admissions about prostitutes in the first interviews with the police, but disputes the content of the interviews during the trial. Special meeting American Cobb particularly remembers a meeting with top sponsor Stefan Seykora, who was director sponsor and marketing company APF. The meeting took place in 2002, i.e. several years before the period covered by the indictment. This company’s series of paid hunting trips to Besseberg is also part of the corruption indictment. The content of the conversation with Seykora caused Cobb to react. – He said from APF’s perspective it would be good to have the World Cup in the USA. Because this would mean TV time in Europe in the evening, Cobb says of the conversation which immediately took a new turn. – He asked me if I understood what was necessary to have the World Cup in the USA. I asked what do you mean, says Cobb before recounting the answer. – He replied “you know what the president needs”, Cobb says that Seykora said. – Do you mean the rumors about hunting trips and prostitutes, Cobb says he asked. – “Yes” he answered. I said it wasn’t going to happen, says Cobb. His opinion was that everyone knew the stories about Besseberg. – The entire biathlon community knew that hunting trips and prostitutes were on offer, says Cobb. He believes that the board of the International Biathlon Union was also aware of this. He remembers how one of the members of the IBU board, Klaus Leistner, joked about how Besseberg was interested in hunting and women. Anders Besseberg during the World Cup final in Tyumen, Russia in 2018, together with the Russian governor Vladimir Yakushev. Photo: Sergey Rusanov / Shutterstock – He was his closest ally on the board. When he said that, I would think that everyone else on the board was aware of it, says Cobb. Christian B. Hjort, Besseberg’s defender, points out that there are a lot of rumors being put forward in the case. – We will return to this in the procedure, but there is a lot of reference to rumours, says Hjort. Olle Dahlin, who is today president of the International Biathlon Union, said in court that he has no specific stories about Besseberg and prostitution. – There are a lot of rumours. I don’t have a concrete example of that when it comes to prostitution, says Dahlin. On Wednesday, it also became clear that the Besseberg case will be tried in the Sports Arbitration Court, independently of the case in the Norwegian judiciary. The date has not been set. Greg McKenna, the head of the Biathlon Integrity Unit, which oversees internal rules in the International Biathlon Union, says that Besseberg, among other things, risks a fine of up to 100,000 euros. It became clear in court on Wednesday. Rejected doping report In the witness questioning of Cobb, the doping scandal in Russia was also a topic. There, Anders Besseberg’s handling of the scandal became a topic. Among other things, this applied to the McLaren report which revealed the extent of the cheating in 2016. – He told me that the report was not worth the paper it was written on, said Max Cobb in court. Max Cobb was critical of Besseberg’s handling of the Russian doping scandal. Photo: NTB Cobb had heard that Besseberg had given the same point of view to others about the report on Russian sports, which shook the sports world. – There was deep skepticism on the part of the president, says Cobb about the discussions in the board about the report. His opinion was that Besseberg did not respect the testimony of doping whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov. This was the Russian who had revealed the methods he and others had used to hide the doping cheat. – He was quite condescending in relation to the work and the report McLaren had prepared, says Cobb. Court drawing of Besseberg in Buskerud District Court. Photo: Ane Hem / NTB It was in contrast to his own perception of the report. The day before Cobb testified, Besseberg had, among other things, been asked about today’s witnesses Olle Dahlin (current president of the IBU) and Max Cobb, to whom he has given little praise. It showed, among other things, an intercepted conversation with top sponsor Volker Schmid, with whom he has had a close relationship for several decades. “Olle and Max are completely lost”. Do you think it’s fair to share? asked the prosecutor. – To a good friend, it is not unnatural to say that, replied Besseberg. Dahlin, who testified on Wednesday, pointed out that the IBU board felt very top-managed. – Besseberg had a majority on the board, so it was very predetermined how things would end, said Dahlin, who himself has a background in Swedish business. Saw a change after 2014 Earlier in the day, former Norwegian biathlon president Tore Bøygard told that he saw a change at Besseberg after 2014. – It was all the time defending the system that the Russian biathlon federation operated with, said Bøygard. He also reacted to how Besseberg referred to the Russian doping scandal. Former Norwegian biathlete president Tore Bøygard in court on Tuesday. On the right, prosecutor Marianne Djupesland in Økokrim Photo: Stian Haraldsen / news Bøygard remembers in particular a press conference he reacted to, where Besseberg said there was no evidence of cheating in the earlier report on McLaren. – The experience I was left with after that statement was that Rodchenkov was not taken seriously and that McLaren was not believed, said Bøygard. Besseberg himself has previously mentioned that there was no evidence, but a number of indications in the McLaren report. – There were a lot of little things you started to wonder about, Bøygard said of Besseberg in the time after the Olympics in Sochi in 2014. Former Norwegian biathlete president Tore Bøygard outside Buskerud District Court on Wednesday. Photo: NTB He was later pressed hard on this by Besseberg’s defender. Among other things, he read out newspaper articles from 2014 and 2016 in which he believed that Bøygard did not show major objections to Besseberg at the time. He called for specific experiences that led to Bøygard’s skepticism. Bøygard then referred to the explanation he had given earlier in the day. In that explanation, Bøygard said, among other things, that he had previously experienced Besseberg as neutral in many matters. He eventually responded that he now became more actively involved, for example when Russian Tyumen was chosen as WC organizer in 2016. Alerted about banknotes Bøygard said that he also alerted Anders Besseberg about envelopes and possible vote buying while the Norwegian was president of the IBU. This applied both when Russian Tyumen was awarded the Biathlon World Cup in the autumn of 2016. But also a congress in 2010. Bøygard brought forward several episodes that had caused him to react. It involved Russians. Several Russians are central to the accusations against Besseberg in court. Bøygard said that he informed Besseberg about what he experienced. First, he told about the congress in 2010 where Aleksander Tikhonov, a long-standing Russian biathlon champion, brought a paper bag to the table where he was sitting. – The person sitting next to me got the paper bag. On top was a shirt and an envelope. The person opened the envelope at the bottom of the bag and I saw there was money in the envelope, says Bøygard. Tore Bøygard together with Anders Besseberg and Rakel Rauntun, former general secretary of the Norwegian Biathlon Union. Photo: NTB He does not know what Tikhonov was looking for. But he saw money being handed to a person. – I cannot retrieve the name of the person in question. He was Russian, a coach and living in Australia, Bøygard said. He did not take it to mean that the person had any official role at the Congress. He also does not believe that Tikhonov was a candidate for an international position during the congress. But he saw that there were bills in the envelope. – Did you notify Anders about this? – Yes, said Bøygard and continued. – After dinner I informed Anders about what I had seen. I expected the IBU to take care of the matter. That was what I could do, said Bøygard. He then also told how envelopes were handed out by what he believed to be Russians, before the controversial choice of Tyumen as World Cup organizer in the autumn of 2016. Also then, he notified Besseberg, Bøygard told.
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Claims “everyone” heard rumors about prostitutes – one meeting in particular has stuck – news Sport – Sports news, results and broadcasting schedule
