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The Melbourne-born 30-year-old won a sprint
bronze for Australia at the 2012 Olympics in London but missed
out on selection for last year's Rio Games.
"The President resolved to grant Russian Federation citizenship
to Shane Alan Perkins," the Kremlin said in a statement on its
website (http://en.kremlin.ru/acts/news/55354)
Perkins posted a picture of himself on Twitter wearing Russia
colors on his bike and wrote: "I'm the most excited guy in the
world right now! I can make my dreams come true!"
Perkins, a good friend of Russia's reigning world champion
sprinter Denis Dmitriev, who took bronze in the sprint at Rio,
began seriously considering defecting less than a year ago,
frustrated at being shut out of Australia's high performance
program, he told local media.
Perkins' father Daryl, a former national champion, raced in the
now defunct tandem sprint with Ian Browne at the 1964 Tokyo
Olympics. They were beaten by the silver medal-winning Soviet
Union pair of Imants Bodnieks and Viktor Logunov in the
quarter-finals.
Australia has granted citizenship to a number of top Russian
athletes over the years, including women's tennis player Daria
Gavrilova, the world number 26, and former European champion
speed skater Tatiana Borodulina.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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