ISU Statement on Russia's war against Ukraine - Participation in international competitions of Skaters and Officials from Russia and Belarus

[Trillian]

Lot of references to the doping issues here, so I think it’s worth pointing out that the current suspension of Russian skaters has nothing to do with that, and the ISU had really showed no indication that they were planning to do anything about it. We had every reason to think Kamila would be allowed to compete at Worlds, remember? It’s nice to think that whenever Russians re-enter international competition, they will also be expected to comply with doping regulations, but … I think that may be giving the ISU too much credit.

On the other hand, I don’t think Russia will be back in international competition for a while, and it may be a very different situation whenever we do see Russian skaters in ISU events again.

 

[Karen-W]

On the other hand, I don’t think Russia will be back in international competition for a while, and it may be a very different situation whenever we do see Russian skaters in ISU events again.

I think the biggest change is going to be in the women's discipline. For too many years, we've been conditioned to accept tiny jumps with questionable technique as okay and I'm not sure the rest of the feds are going to want to go back to that. The longer the Russian women are missing from competition, the more jarring and obvious those jump deficiencies will be when they do return.

 

[happycamper2554]

I think the biggest change is going to be in the women's discipline. For too many years, we've been conditioned to accept tiny jumps with questionable technique as okay and I'm not sure the rest of the feds are going to want to go back to that. The longer the Russian women are missing from competition, the more jarring and obvious those jump deficiencies will be when they do return.

Have you seen our World Junior Champion?

 

[Dobre]

Lot of references to the doping issues here, so I think it’s worth pointing out that the current suspension of Russian skaters has nothing to do with that

The argument that the Russian Fed is trying to make for returning to competition, however, is not separate from its handling of doping issues.

 

[AYS]

Have you seen our World Junior Champion?

I think the more relevant benchmark for that point is our current world champion.

Whose iconic performance I just had the pleasure of watching on the NBC recap show, and it was just as powerful this time around.

 

[Trillian]

I think the biggest change is going to be in the women's discipline. For too many years, we've been conditioned to accept tiny jumps with questionable technique as okay and I'm not sure the rest of the feds are going to want to go back to that. The longer the Russian women are missing from competition, the more jarring and obvious those jump deficiencies will be when they do return.

We’ll see. Americans kind of blazed the trail on the “tiny jumps with questionable technique front,” and we’ve still got plenty of those. Tara liked the Russians so much because they’re juiced-up versions of her whole deal from the ‘90s. But I do hope that with the Russians out of the mix, we start to see more equitable calls all around, and people will start to appreciate a more just playing field and strive to retain that in the future.

But I’m not sure Russians are going to be truly welcome in the international sports community again until sometime after Putin is no longer in power, and I’d also speculate that however they get to that point, it’s going to have repercussions for any sports that receive significant government support.

The argument that the Russian Fed is trying to make for returning to competition, however, is not separate from its handling of doping issues.

True. I just don’t think the ISU is going to say, “You can’t come back because you’re doping,” when they were fully willing to ignore the doping before.

 

[Nadya]

I think the biggest change is going to be in the women's discipline. For too many years, we've been conditioned to accept tiny jumps with questionable technique as okay and I'm not sure the rest of the feds are going to want to go back to that. The longer the Russian women are missing from competition, the more jarring and obvious those jump deficiencies will be when they do return.

Lol right the Russians have patented bad technique, everyone else is textbook.

 

[Dobre]

I just don’t think the ISU is going to say, “You can’t come back because you’re doping,” when they were fully willing to ignore the doping before.

They don't have to. They just have to say, "You can't come back because Russian politics are not separate from Russian skating; Russian politics are currently responsible for the murder of thousands of Ukrainian civilians; and Russian skaters are being used as a tool of political propaganda."

 

[Trillian]

They don't have to. They just have to say, "You can't come back because Russian politics are not separate from Russian skating; Russian politics are currently responsible for the murder of thousands of Ukrainian civilians; and Russian skaters are being used as a tool of political propaganda."

I agree. And I do have enough faith in the ISU to believe they’ll at least do that much.

 

[Karen-W]

Have you seen our World Junior Champion?

Lol right the Russians have patented bad technique, everyone else is textbook.

Perhaps, before taking snippy potshots at me, you should go read my comments in the Jr Worlds Women's FS pbp thread. I'm no fan of Levito's jumps and she, rightly, lost the FS. Her jumps were a jarring anomaly in that final flight, where the rest of the women had much larger, more confident and airy jumps. Levito's jump technique isn't built to last. We'll see if she can fix it. As it is, I think she's going to get buried on the GP against the likes of Sakamoto, Hendrickx, You, Kim, Lee, Gubanova, Higuchi, Mihara and, if healthy, Kihira & Tennell. YMMV.

 

[airgelaal]

I think, it all depends on how many Russian skaters decide to change the flag.

 

[Karen-W]

I think, it all depends on how many Russian skaters decide to change the flag.

True - and possibly which ones - ie junior vs. senior.

 

[airgelaal]

True - and possibly which ones - ie junior vs. senior.

Yes. And where are they going to train. If in Russia, what changes can we expect?

 

[Trillian]

I think, it all depends on how many Russian skaters decide to change the flag.

True, but there are a couple of things that I think (hope) could mitigate the impact of this.

One, many ISU member countries don’t have quick or easy citizenship processes, and many have residency requirements. If Russian skaters want to continue living and training in Russia, there are only a small number countries that are options for them. And probably less than they were before - I can’t imagine Poland recruiting more Russians in the near future, for example.

Also, for skaters who do want to continue living and training in Russia, conditions there may not be optimal in the future and there may still be travel challenges for the coaches. I’d also imagine many international feds would impose restrictions on any athlete who participated in any kind of pro-war activity, etc.

Some athletes may choose to leave Russia entirely, but if they’re living abroad and not benefiting from the Russian skating infrastructure, I’d view the situation differently. There are (hopefully) people who are going to leave for genuine reasons, like the ballet star who has joined the Dutch National Ballet.

 

[Nadya]

Perhaps, before taking snippy potshots at me, you should go read my comments in the Jr Worlds Women's FS pbp thread. I'm no fan of Levito's jumps and she, rightly, lost the FS. Her jumps were a jarring anomaly in that final flight, where the rest of the women had much larger, more confident and airy jumps. Levito's jump technique isn't built to last. We'll see if she can fix it. As it is, I think she's going to get buried on the GP against the likes of Sakamoto, Hendrickx, You, Kim, Lee, Gubanova, Higuchi, Mihara and, if healthy, Kihira & Tennell. YMMV.

Nah, I like to respond to what’s in front of me. Not the sum total of your lifetime commentary.

 

[misskarne]

and the ISU had really showed no indication that they were planning to do anything about it. We had every reason to think Kamila would be allowed to compete at Worlds, remember? It’s nice to think that whenever Russians re-enter international competition, they will also be expected to comply with doping regulations, but … I think that may be giving the ISU too much credit.

True. I just don’t think the ISU is going to say, “You can’t come back because you’re doping,” when they were fully willing to ignore the doping before.

Um, what?

The ISU had nothing to do with Valieva being allowed to skate - in fact they were explicitly against it, I seem to recall they were named in the CAS appeal as on the same side as the IOC and WADA. But once CAS ruled in Valieva's favour the ISU had no power to suspend her provisionally - and the fault lay with the WADA rules as written, not with ISU.

Also "they were fully willing to ignore the doping before" - what? The ISU clearly did not know about the doping issue in the Sambo camp, they do not perform the drug tests, without a positive test or skipped tests or other traditional indicators how were they supposed to know?

 

[Karen-W]

Nah, I like to respond to what’s in front of me. Not the sum total of your lifetime commentary.

Okay, troll. Suffice it to say, I'm no fan of Levito and her small jumps. But, I figure it will take some time to de-program the judges from the Eteri glue they've been sniffing for years.

 

[Trillian]

The ISU had nothing to do with Valieva being allowed to skate - in fact they were explicitly against it, I seem to recall they were named in the CAS appeal as on the same side as the IOC and WADA. But once CAS ruled in Valieva's favour the ISU had no power to suspend her provisionally - and the fault lay with the WADA rules as written, not with ISU.

I might be remembering wrong, but didn’t the CAS ruling only apply to the Olympics? Technically they probably could have moved to suspend her from Worlds if that was the case. Even if not, they could have done more to support the clean athletes who were denied their medal ceremony at the Olympics. They could have scored the Sambo-70 skaters fairly for years beforehand, instead of blatantly overscoring them even though it was obvious there were some kind of systemic problems. Co-signing the CAS appeal was the absolute bare minimum the ISU could have done, so I’m not going to give them too much credit for it.

 

[misskarne]

I might be remembering wrong, but didn’t the CAS ruling only apply to the Olympics? Technically they probably could have moved to suspend her from Worlds if that was the case. Even if not, they could have done more to support the clean athletes who were denied their medal ceremony at the Olympics. They could have scored the Sambo-70 skaters fairly for years beforehand, instead of blatantly overscoring them even though it was obvious there were some kind of systemic problems. Co-signing the CAS appeal was the absolute bare minimum the ISU could have done, so I’m not going to give them too much credit for it.

But the CAS ruling clarified that the WADA rules had been written improperly and that there was actually no function for an athlete in the Protected class to be provisionally suspended following a positive test. That was the whole problem. Someone at WADA didn't do their job properly, so here we are. ISU can't then turn around and suspend Valieva when CAS have already made it clear there is no mechanism to rely on and RUSADA/RuFed have made it clear they will appeal the pants off any such judgement.

 

[Trillian]

But the CAS ruling clarified that the WADA rules had been written improperly and that there was actually no function for an athlete in the Protected class to be provisionally suspended following a positive test. That was the whole problem. Someone at WADA didn't do their job properly, so here we are. ISU can't then turn around and suspend Valieva when CAS have already made it clear there is no mechanism to rely on and RUSADA/RuFed have made it clear they will appeal the pants off any such judgement.

The ISU incentivized the doping and all the other abuse at Sambo-70 by overscoring their skaters and publicly celebrating Eteri for years beforehand. I don’t care if they didn’t know about the doping specifically - it was very clear there was a problem, and they didn’t just allow it to continue, they rewarded it. They also didn’t do anything on behalf of the other skaters who were harmed by the doping situation. Did they co-sign the U.S. team’s request to hold the medal ceremony in Beijing? If so, I missed that. Yes, the ISU was on the correct side of the CAS appeal, but again - that’s the bare minimum.

 

[MacMadame]

True. I just don’t think the ISU is going to say, “You can’t come back because you’re doping,” when they were fully willing to ignore the doping before.

Even if they wanted to, what are the policies and procedures that would apply to this?

Okay, troll. Suffice it to say, I'm no fan of Levito and her small jumps. But, I figure it will take some time to de-program the judges from the Eteri glue they've been sniffing for years.

Judges have been rewarding tiny jumps with poor technique as long as they had more revolutions than most of their peers for decades. It's part of how the sport is scored and always has been.

Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to say that all of Eteri's skaters had small jumps with questionable technique.

 

[Dobre]

"Luhansk Oblast Governor: Two people die due to Russian shelling, Olymp sports complex burns down."

"Russian forces hit the recently rebuilt sports complex 'Olympus,' which was used to train representatives of Ukraine’s Olympic team."

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1515931776035831813?cxt=HHwWioC-5eT61YkqAAAA

 

[Hedwig]

I think it cannot be overestimated how much politics went on behind the scenes. Some subtle, some less so. Some official in meetings and even more behind closed doors. With incentives like money and with threats or promises. I think a lot of federations do it - propping up their skaters, talking about how bad it is that something is rewarded that their rivals are doing and so on. But we all know that Russia is known to take it a step further and that they have been ruthless in this game.

So the change we might see in the next few years when no Russian skaters will be on the circuit, might be even more dramatic and wide-spreading than we can imagine at the moment. I think that motions might be passed that were unthinkable before and that the whole ISU might be modernised by a bit. So for the sport as a whole this might be a good thing.

I do feel for Russians skaters who are not openly supporting the war or are even opposing it in their small way like Tuktamysheva. Especially for Junior skaters who are just children and for whom the skating future has been robbed away. Of course they are victims of this war as well. And of course it goes without saying that what they suffer is NOTHING in comparison of what Ukrainian skaters are suffering. This is no competition but empathy all around does not cost me anything.

 

[reut]

There is a very long article on MatchTV about the whole situation and possible outcomes:

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matchtv.ru

The main conclusion he does in the end: "Whatever, we don't even need ISU, we're the best, we have the best skaters anyway, we will create our own skating association and our own Grand Prix events". Well, good luck to them, "скатертью дорога", definitely I won't miss them.

 

[zoe111]

There is a very long article on MatchTV about the whole situation and possible outcomes:

ТоÑалÑнÑе ÑанкÑии и изолÑÑиÑ. Чего ÑоÑÐµÑ ISU Ð¾Ñ Ð Ð¾ÑÑии, и как ÑÑо Ð¼Ð¾Ð¶ÐµÑ Ð¿Ð¾Ð´ÑолкнÑÑÑ Ð½Ð°Ñ Ðº ÑомÑ, ÑÑÐ¾Ð±Ñ Ð²Ð·ÑÑÑ ÑигÑÑÐºÑ Ð² Ñвои ÑÑки?

ÐÑÑÑ ÑмÑÑл попÑобоваÑÑ ÑоздаÑÑ ÑобÑÑвеннÑÑ Ð¼ÐµÐ¶Ð´ÑнаÑоднÑÑ ÑедеÑаÑиÑ.

matchtv.ru

The main conclusion he does in the end: "Whatever, we don't even need ISU, we're the best, we have the best skaters anyway, we will create our own skating association and our own Grand Prix events". Well, good luck to them, "скатертью дорога", definitely I won't miss them.

What's interesting about that article is that they appear to be quite convinced that they won't be able to participate in the congress. Which, if that happens, i think would be a good thing. Amazing that they are pretty upfront about the fact that upping the age limit is bad for them.

 

[allezfred]

The sheer arrogance of that article is breathtaking. Anyway, good luck with organising a rogue international federation because that will mean bye bye to the Olympics.

 

[Bigbird]

Even if they wanted to, what are the policies and procedures that would apply to this?


Judges have been rewarding tiny jumps with poor technique as long as they had more revolutions than most of their peers for decades. It's part of how the sport is scored and always has been.

Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to say that all of Eteri's skaters had small jumps with questionable technique.

But why do Eteri's skaters struggle with their jumps as soon as puberty hits? I don't know if this is rumour or fact, but there was a report of ET collaborating with Mishin? Now maybe this will address the technique issue.

 

[giselle23]

I might be remembering wrong, but didn’t the CAS ruling only apply to the Olympics? Technically they probably could have moved to suspend her from Worlds if that was the case. Even if not, they could have done more to support the clean athletes who were denied their medal ceremony at the Olympics. They could have scored the Sambo-70 skaters fairly for years beforehand, instead of blatantly overscoring them even though it was obvious there were some kind of systemic problems. Co-signing the CAS appeal was the absolute bare minimum the ISU could have done, so I’m not going to give them too much credit for it.

I believe the ruling applied to her participation in any event pending the outcome of her case.

 

[Nadya]

But why do Eteri's skaters struggle with their jumps as soon as puberty hits? I don't know if this is rumour or fact, but there was a report of ET collaborating with Mishin? Now maybe this will address the technique issue.

Most lady skaters struggle with jumps when puberty hits. It's not an Eteri problem.

 

[Nadya]

The sheer arrogance of that article is breathtaking. Anyway, good luck with organising a rogue international federation because that will mean bye bye to the Olympics.

I didn't read it that way at all, and I am not sure why you did. It's a longish piece and only the last two paragraphs suggest that Russia may look into creating a homegrown federation. I happen to think it's quite a pragmatic way out of a bad situation. The fact of the matter is that Russia and Belarus' athletes were banned from competitions for reasons quite outside their control. There is nothing skaters or their federation can do to address the underlying problem, and so they have to live with it in some way. Short of disbanding the national skating program, what else can they do? They have to figure out a way to keep the sport going. Expecting them to do a grand mea culpa performance is quite stupid, considering how utterly unproductive it would be.