The problem as I see it, and as I referenced the team document a few pages back, is that the ISU did not clarify how this situation would work. For those of you saying 'well when there aren't rules for this case, it needs to just default to how it works elsewhere', I don't agree.
I'm not siding with Russia at all, but this is another ISU issue of not covering all their bases on top of putting together horribly worded officially 'binding' documents. There's no mentioning of disqualification and if it should be singular or for the complete team, either. As I brought up a few days ago, the main point that every single outlet including Skate Canada
should be bringing up is the
fact that there were 25 women qualified to the free skate in Beijing in the event that Valieva would eventually be disqualified, as to not take away a spot from anyone else. I haven't seen anyone else bring up this point as a stronger argument, even if we have to revert back to the poorly-worded/formulated rules for this unique team event.
As you can see here:
https://results.isu.org/results/season2122/owg2022/CAT002RS.htm
There is a * note of the results being provisional. Everyone is going to move up from 5th to 25th place because of rules that are specifically written for individual competition.
This falls on the hands of the ISU yet again, and Russia may very well have an argument that there was no officially documented procedure in place for team-style competition. Therefore, who is to say what officially should have been the scoring outcome?
She'd have them signing legal documents giving Canada the bronze just to have her shut up and drop them off at the hotel.
