Rinnat Ibragimowitsch Safin

Rinnat Safin
Full name	Риннат Ибрагимович Сафин
Association	Soviet Union
birthday	August 29, 1940
place of birth	Bolschije Jaki, Soviet Union
date of death	October 22, 2014
Career
society	Dynamo Leningrad
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 4 × 2 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold 1972 Sapporo Season World championships silver 1967 Altenberg Season gold 1969 Zakopane Season silver 1969 Zakopane singles gold 1970 Ostersund Season gold 1971 Hämeenlinna Season gold 1973 Lake Placid Season
World Cup balance
last change: March 1, 2009

Rinnat Ibragimowitsch Safin ( Russian Риннат Ибрагимович Сафин ; born August 29, 1940 in Bolschije Jaki , Tatarstan ; † October 22, 2014 ) was a Soviet biathlete and Olympic champion.

Rinnat Safin was one of the most successful Soviet and international biathletes of the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, although he was mostly in the shadow of his great compatriot Alexander Tikhonov , at whose side he achieved his greatest successes. At the Biathlon World Championships in Altenberg in 1967 , the Dynamo Leningrad athlete missed his first medal over 20 kilometers by five seconds behind Jon Istad, finishing fourth . In the relay competition he won his first international medal with Tichonow, Viktor Mamatow and Nikolai Pusanow behind the Norwegians with silver.

Safin did not take part in the 1968 Winter Olympics. In 1969 he started again, now in Zakopane , at the biathlon world championships . Behind Tichonow he won his first and only international individual medal with silver, and his first gold medal with Tichonow, Mamatow and Wladimir Gundarzew in the relay competition. In Östersund he won again in 1970 , now with Alexander Ushakow for Gundarzew, the relay gold medal.

In 1971 Safin won the relay gold for the third time in Hämeenlinna , and the fourth man was Nikolai Muschitow . In the individual he reached fifth place. In 1972 he took part in his only Olympic Games in Sapporo . If he achieved a comparatively poor placement in the individual with 19th place, he won the gold medal in the relay competition with Tichonow, Mamatow and Iwan Bjakow . Safin won the fourth and final world title with the relay in 1973 in Lake Placid . In addition to Tikhonov and Safin, Yuri Kolmakow and Gennady Kovalyov belonged to the squadron.

Web links

• Rinnat Ibragimowitsch Safin in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )