Andrejs Rastorgujevs (born 27 May 1988) is a Latvian biathlete. He has participated in three Winter Olympics, and has two individual and one relay Biathlon World Cup podium.
Career
Andrejs Rastorgujevs is a biathlete from Latvia. In the first event of 2009–10 Biathlon World Cup in Östersund he participated in 10 km sprint, where he finished 47th, but later on he was disqualified for finishing in the wrong lane.[1]2012-13 Biathlon World Cup was the breakthrough season for Rastorgujevs, finishing the season 36th overall. Next year he finished the season 16th overall, while earning four Top 6 finishes.
After finishing fourth four times during his career, during the last race of 2016-17 Biathlon World Cup he finally won his first podium, finishing second at the 15 km mass start in Oslo.
Rastorgujevs served an 18 month competition ban from March 2021 to September 2022 for an anti-doping rule violation in relation to whereabouts failures.[2][3] All of his results were disqualified from 1 July 2020 including his gold medal in the 20km sprint at the 2021 IBU Open European Championships. Rastorgujevs appealed the decision, but this was rejected in August 2022.[4]
On 5 March 2023 Rastorgujevs and Baiba Bendika placed third, in the BMW IBU World Cup placed in Nové Město na Moravě, in the Single Mixed Relays and earned a first-ever Relay podium for Latvia.
On 18 February 2024 Rastorgujevs won a silver medal in the 15-kilometer mass start at the Biathlon World Championships 2024 in Nove Mesto, winning his biggest success in his career and also in the history of Latvian biathlon.
At the 2021 European Championships, Rastorgujevs was placed 1st in the 20km individual sprint and received the gold medal, but his result was later disqualified.
