pleeeeeease evoke the talented athletes exception…….
One doesn’t get that many chances in life to skate in the Olympics …….
Yeah this is the option they have.
I have two thoughts about this.
If you look at them isolated as a team, I think they should very well be within the requirements here. They are really talented, already won a Challenger medal and has been improving every season, behind what anyone actually could expect. If that doesn´t fit the criteria, what does? I would go as far as say if you compare them with other new teams across the world, they are among the most talented new teams we have seen in a while. If you add on that Sweden never had a ice dance team at the Olympics, they were the first to be represented at Worlds for many years etc., they tick of several boxes here. Milla is only 20 and is fairly young. I hope they can argue with this and not care about if they will make the free at Olympics or not, because that would be very unfair with how much world ranking and politics influences the scores, but they even have a chance here but it will depend on other teams are clean or not.
The big if here is that Nikolaj already got this exception in 2022 as a single skater, and if they are willing to look through it since it´s a new discipline. I obviously think they should because of the arguments ahead, but that could possible raise questions about others who don´t get it a 2nd time. That is what happend with Alexander Majorov. For example there is a chance that Andreas won´t get it in 2030 if he sticks around, if he doesn´t reach the high standard requirements. And then I assume there are the other sports as well that it sets precedents for. This is about Olympics, not just figure sakting.
My cents is that they might look through it because it´s a huge deal for ice dance in Sweden. The media coverage they are doing now would certainly make it difficult for SOC to deny it - the press release from yesterday reached several media outlets.
But if Milla doesn´t get her citizenship in time, i´m not sure we will know or if they even make a formal assessment. By 2030 they might not be a looked as a "future prospect", since they probably might retire after that, and Nikolaj will be 29.