Cristina Vasilianova, the head of the Moldovan delegation at the recently ended Winter Olympics in Beijing, has called its participation in the competition a "victory". She said that the games were difficult, "but the results were admirable".

"Unfortunately, in Moldova sport is in the pen, and the competition in Beijing was the most difficult Olympics. It was also complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A member of the national team, Maxim Makarov and myself, fell into self-imposed isolation. We had positive tests. But all of us managed to cope with the difficulties. Alina Stremous was especially successful. She placed 10th in the women's 7.5km sprint. She managed to rank among the best biathletes in the world, who approached the Olympics at the peak of their form after four years of preparation," the sports manager emphasized.

On behalf of the President of the Biathlon Federation, Dmitry Torner, its Secretary General, Petr Bria, read a message to the athletes in which he noted that "the Olympics gathers the best and you were among them". He stressed that "today, the biathlon unites millions of people all over the world, and Moldova is part of this family."

Bria said that with an investment of 7 million lei in preparations for the Beijing Winter Games, 568,000 lei had been earmarked by the state.

"For the entire four-year preparatory cycle - about 2 million lei were allocated. Only with the appearance of President Torner about a year ago the situation in biathlon changed radically. Even the federation's debts were paid off. In a year we managed to form a management team and start working with a decent result. In Beijing it was achieved," the coach believes.

At the same time, Alina Stremous noted that she was "very satisfied with her result".

"Of course, I wanted to show a result, but I set myself up for 15-20th place. However, I got into the top 10. I didn't even realize it right away. Unfortunately, one can feel the difference in training of the athletes, financing of their training," the sportsman added.

Larisa Popova, first vice-president of the National Olympic Committee of Moldova and Olympic champion (1980), stated that as long as "the state in Moldova does not pay attention to sport, there will be no sport in the country and no top achievements in it".