It came at the end of what was initially a three-horse race to replace Alexander Kravtsov, who was not standing. 

Drachev secured 40 votes to his opponent's 16 in the third round of voting in Tyumen to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. 

Dmitry Aleksashin was eliminated in the first round with just four votes.

Drachev then won the second round 36-22 but this was not enough for a winning margin.

The 52-year-old is a double Olympic medallist as he won relay silver at Lillehammer 1994 and relay bronze in Nagano four years later.

Drachev also claimed four World Championship gold medals during a career which ended with him representing Belarus rather than Russia.

He was not a member of the Executive Committee before the election today. 

Maygurov is a vice-president of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) and the RBU.

The 49-year-old, a double Olympic medallist, waived his statutory right to replace Anders Besseberg as IBU President after the Norwegian stood down following the opening of a criminal investigation into alleged corruption within the IBU leadership.

Aleksashin was also a vice-president of the RBU and has previously served as a spokesperson of the national governing body.

Kravtsov was elected to replace Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who is currently at the centre of a bitter legal dispute with former Moscow Laboratory director turned whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, back in 2014.

He has been at the helm of the RBU throughout the fallout to the Russian doping scandal and served as Chef de Mission of the host nation's team at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, where a sample-swapping scheme was allegedly in place to help athletes avoid testing positive.

One of the first jobs for the new President will be to restore the status of the RBU, relegated to provisional member level by the IBU following the country's doping scandal.

According to Sport Express, Drachev promised to push for criminal laws against doping before his election.