In Mix of Russian Sports, Politics and Business, a Bobsled Leader in Exile

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Grigorii Bedzhamov, center, the president of Russia’s bobsled federation, with Prince Albert II of Monaco, left, and Ivo Ferriani, president of the international bobsled federation, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 2013.

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DPA, via Corbis

MOSCOW — In December, Grigorii Bedzhamov, the president of Russia’s national bobsled federation, disappeared. He stopped coming to work, stopped answering his cellphone, stopped answering his emails.

A week into the silence, the Russian news media began to report that Mr. Bedzhamov had fled the country amid an emerging bank scandal. The Russian edition of Forbes magazine placed him in Monaco and reported that he was preparing to apply for political asylum in another European country. Soon after, the bobsled federation released a statement saying that Mr. Bedzhamov was on a “planned vacation.”

But almost three months later, Mr. Bedzhamov is still on that vacation, and the federation, which is struggling to pay…

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