Russian Triathlon Federation

The Russian Triathlon Federation (Федерация триатлона России) is the official national governing body for the sports of triathlon, duathlon and winter triathlon and represents Russia in the ITU.

The president of the RTF is Sergey Bystrov (Russian Сергей Алексеевич Быстров, born 13 April 1957 in Tver Oblast). In 2000, Bystrov was the vice coordinator of Putin's election campaign in Tver Oblast, from 2001 to 2004 he was Vice Minister of Labour and Social Development, from 2004 on he has worked in various functions in the Ministry of Transport and has been in charge of the infrastructure and logistics department for the Olympic Games in Sochi.

In the year before the Olympic Games in London 2012, two male triathletes and one female triathlete have emerged as the greatest Olympic hopes: Alexander Bryukhankov, Dmitry Polyanski, and Irina Abysova:

Igor Sysoyev took part in two Olympic Games and can be considered Russia's most successful triathlete of the last decade. His wife Irina Abysova, who has been the dominating figure among the Russian female triathletes of the last decade, had a bad bike accident and was seriously injured in Beijing. According to her World Championship results, Abysova should have achieved a good Olympic Games result as well.

The RTF is not only one of the biggest triathlon federations, the RTF also seems to be one of the influential federations, as some incidents suggest:

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