“I believe that we will be cheering for our team in the quarter-finals and you never know, maybe even in the semi-finals. Everything is possible. They need to follow the example of the Olympic hockey team. They had their anthem and the flag taken away, but they still showed Russia are the best in the world,” Mardeev said.

Russia will host the 2018 FIFA World Cup from June 14 to July 15 and will face Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Uruguay in Group A.

Mardeev will take part in the 2018 Silk Way Rally, which starts on July 15 in Xian, China and finishes in Moscow on July 27.