Career
He also competed for the Unified Team in the 1992 Winter Olympics and for Russia in the 1994 Winter Olympics. Botvinov defected from Russia to Austria in 1996 and was forced to sit out both the 1996-1997 FIS World Cup Season and the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano until he could his citizenship status clarified, but returned to cross country form in 1998. He also encountered controversy with his teammate Christian Hoffmann regarding blood doping in 2002, though both cleared by the International Olympic Committee on April 9, 2002.
Botvinov retired after the 2006-2007 World Cup season.