Anton Shipulin, a world biathlon champion at the heart of Russia's doping scandal, has announced his retirement.
Shipulin told a news conference Tuesday in Moscow that he decided to retire after he was barred from the Winter Olympics earlier this year.
He is one of scores of Russian athletes banned from competing for being part of Russia's state-sponsored doping program at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
The IOC has stripped him of the gold medal he won there.
Shipulin, like many other Russian athletes, has vehemently denied the accusations.
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He says it's "better to leave now than win spots far from the pedestal" and blamed "the political climate" for his poor results.
Shipulin's announcement comes less than two weeks after Austrian police visited the Russian national team at a Biathlon World Cup event in the town of Hochfilzen over possible doping violations.
The International Biathlon Union (IBU) later announced that Austrian authorities were investigating five biathlon officials and five athletes from Russia over possible doping-related offences during the 2017 World Championship.
The IBU charged four Russian biathletes with anti-doping rule violations in November, but Shipulin was not among them.
"There are several reasons but the main one is that we weren't invited to the 2018 Olympics," Shipulin said.
The 31-year-old was not among the four Russian biathletes cleared by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to compete at this year's Pyeongchang Winter Games.
