2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics - Figure Skating Qualification

Andrea82 said:
Skate Canada announced their nominations

Men panel: Leanna Caron. Already judged Ice Dance at 2018 Olympics.
Pair panel: Karen Howard. Judged Women at 2014 Olympics
Ice Dance panel: Leslie Keen. Olympic debut.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1187186583456142&set=a.623460849828721

Skate Canada have quite a number of their judges officiating at more than 1 Olympic edition.
USFSA, on the other hand, tends to spread the Olympic judging assignments between more people (we will see if they continue like this this year), with judges usually serving only in 1 Olympic.
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According the minutes of October USFSA board meeting, USA juges will be:
Janis Engel, Kristina Lundgren, Peggy Graham, and Kevin Rosenstein
https://usfigureskating.org/documents/2025/12/4/BOD_Minutes_2025_10_13_FINAL.pdf (paragraph Milano planning)

Engel is the Ide Dance one.
The document indicates that Rosenstein will also serve in the Team Event. So it is the Women panel judge (USA team event judge is the USA Women panel judge according to the draw results).

Lundgren (Women) and Graham (Pairs) also officiated in Beijing 2022 games.
Interestently, it is the first times in ages since USA judges served in back to back Games (apart when they were referees or technical controllers nominated by ISU). To get an American judge who served as judge twice at Olympics, I have to go back to Elaine DeMore (1992 and 1984).
 
Andrea82 said:
To get an American judge who served as judge twice at Olympics, I have to go back to Elaine DeMore (1992 and 1984).
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DeMore judged in 1994 (pairs) and 1984 (dance)

The most recent to do two is Lucy Brennan (2002 and 1988)

Ramona McIntyre judged back-to-back Olympics in the same discipline (men)

Janet Allen Carpenter and Yvonne Sherman competed at one Olympics and judged two Olympics for a total of three. Of note, Yvonne competed in both singles and pairs at the same Olympics and judged two events at one of her Olympics as a judge; 11 Olympic segments as a competitor and official must be the American record. (Competed in ladies' figures and free, pairs free; judged pairs short and free, men's figures, free, ladies' figures, short, free)

Mary Louise Wright and Hugh Graham both judged two. Hugh's sister Margaret Anne Wier judged the Olympics after she was an alternate judge (under 6.0, the alternate judge judged alongside the panel during the event and stepped in if a panel judge was unable to finish a segment for any reason) which is essentially judging back-to-back Olympics. (Also of note: Peggy Graham (2022 and 2026) is the daughter of Hugh Graham. Lorrie Parker (2018) is the daughter of Margaret Anne (Graham) Wier, later Margaret Anne Holt)

Elaine DeMore and Mary Louise Wright each judged one Olympics as a dance judge and one as a singles/pairs judge. Very few officials hold ISU-level appointments in both S/P and ice dance, and to judge Olympics across the two disciplines is rare.

There may be others I'm forgetting.
 
Re Switzerland decision on Kaiser
The timeline is

20th January: Swiss Skating Federation should send the Swiss Olympic Committee their proposed selection.
The Skating Fed selection committee is composed by Richard Leroy, Sandor Galambos and Roland Mader.

22th January: Swiss Olympic Commitee makes their final decision. The Swiss Olympic Committee selection committee is made by
Ruth Metzler-Arnold (Présidente Swiss Olympic), Ralph Stöckli (Chef de Mission), Mario Gyr (Swiss Olympic Executive Committee member), Matthias Kyburz (Swiss Olympic exécutive commette member, representatives on the Athletes Commission).
 
Next deadline is on Monday

January 12, 2026: Entry by Name in ORS (ISU Online Registration System) must be made by all NOCs/ISU Members which have been allocated an entry to the OWG, including those with remaining stand-by entries, no later than January 12, 2026. In the case that not all NOCs use their full quota of entries and the available entries are reallocated to NOC with remaining stand-by entries, the
NOCs receiving these reallocated entries will be informed by the ISU Office by latest January 25, 2026. These entries do not replace the entries as indicated below [the below refers to Milano-Cortina 2026 Entry by Name set for 26th January].

Let's see if Uzbekistan will finally forfait their Pair spot..
 
This was such great news on a Friday, this really made my day :love:

I´m so happy the waiting time is over for them and they also got the news and confirmation before Euros next week so they don´t need the uncertainty and a lot of questions about citizenship there.
 
I´m reading the press release on the Team Sweden Olympic site and they also got the promising athlete exception like Andreas - "Framtidskriteriet" - based on that they are a new ice dance team that they think will develop.

So Nikolaj Majorov I believe is the first skater that has gotten in twice - so the different discipline thing has something to say.
 
skateblessing said:
I´m reading the press release on the Team Sweden Olympic site and they also got the promising athlete exception like Andreas - "Framtidskriteriet" - based on that they are a new ice dance team that they think will develop.

So Nikolaj Majorov I believe is the first skater that has gotten in twice - so the different discipline thing has something to say.
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Skateblessing, are you Swedish? If so, I’m curious if you think the citizenship worked out so easily because she’s Norwegian. Or would they have done it for anyone in similar circumstances?
 
PRlady said:
Skateblessing, are you Swedish? If so, I’m curious if you think the citizenship worked out so easily because she’s Norwegian. Or would they have done it for anyone in similar circumstances?
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I´m Norwegian, but I have been trying to catch up on as much information as possible about how the process is. Nordic citizens has the shortest outcomes from all applications with average of about 2 months for 75% of the applications according to information on Migrationsverkets site. Which is a lot shorter then the average of 37 months for adults without any such connection (this is the longest waiting time for the average of 75%). So the Nordic citizen part is making a lot of difference. After the Nordic citizens, applicants from the age of 18-21 get some sort of priority, but this is longer then Nordic citizens. She is 20 so maybe the combination of both pushed her abit ahead of the applicants.

Formally they have said that she filed the application on December 1 because of the residency requirements of 2 years (she lived 2 years in Sweden in December), so it was the quickest she could formally apply or be considered. Which would mean on average she would get her citizenship by around February 1. That would mean that the timeline was awfully tight. But also todays article says she started the process already in March and they had made sure that everything was right. When they first looked at her application, it was pretty straightforward. She doesn´t have any family either, she is filing for herself, got work, has a biometric Norwegian passport - so it was going to be very quick the minute they looked at her application.

It´s hard to know if the nature of her application being so easy and straightforward is the reason she got it so quick, or if they actually made a priority on her. It took a little over a month and the average is around 2 months, but the other Nordic citizens that are applying - we don´t know if their cases is more complex - maybe they are applying for whole family, don´t have their paperwork right and must ask for more information, and that is why it´s taking two months for most others Nordic citizens. I don´t think it´s completely unheard of that she got it so quick with the average time of 2 months, and that is the overage of 75%, we don´t know if the other 25% are usually quicker or slower - I guess it´s a good mix depending on the individual cases. But I wouldn´t rule out that they put in a letter at her application to consider making her a priority because of Olympics and that might have helped a little, but that is about it of what I think the Fed could have done - I don´t think they had much power in such process to lobby - if Milla hadn´t been a Nordic citizen it´s unlikely she would have gotten her citizenship so quick.
 
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Anyways - her new passport is probably in the making now, she might need an emergency passport going into Euros next week if she hasn´t got it back before they travel - but normally that shouldn´t be an issue getting an emergency passport when the reason is that a new one is the making.

Edit: If she has a dual citizenship - I think that is allowed, she might not need to hand in her Norwegian passport in the process.
 
Andrea82 said:
Re Switzerland decision on Kaiser
The timeline is

20th January: Swiss Skating Federation should send the Swiss Olympic Committee their proposed selection.
The Skating Fed selection committee is composed by Richard Leroy, Sandor Galambos and Roland Mader.

22th January: Swiss Olympic Commitee makes their final decision. The Swiss Olympic Committee selection committee is made by
Ruth Metzler-Arnold (Présidente Swiss Olympic), Ralph Stöckli (Chef de Mission), Mario Gyr (Swiss Olympic Executive Committee member), Matthias Kyburz (Swiss Olympic exécutive commette member, representatives on the Athletes Commission).
Click to expand...
So if Swiss Olympic Comittee doesn´t give Kaiser the spot, the next in line would only have a working day (the 23rd) to figure out if their Olympic Committee will send them since the deadline is Monday the 26th - I don´t know if this is normal or not, but i´m wondering if this has happen before and then it was too late for the sub to get things sorted out and basically Olympic will be with one skater less.
 
skateblessing said:
So if Swiss Olympic Comittee doesn´t give Kaiser the spot, the next in line would only have a working day (the 23rd) to figure out if their Olympic Committee will send them since the deadline is Monday the 26th - I don´t know if this is normal or not, but i´m wondering if this has happen before and then it was too late for the sub to get things sorted out and basically Olympic will be with one skater less.
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Well, chances are good that there's been a "what-if" discussion already for the fed & NOC of the first alternate.
 
skateblessing said:
So if Swiss Olympic Comittee doesn´t give Kaiser the spot, the next in line would only have a working day (the 23rd) to figure out if their Olympic Committee will send them since the deadline is Monday the 26th - I don´t know if this is normal or not, but i´m wondering if this has happen before and then it was too late for the sub to get things sorted out and basically Olympic will be with one skater less.
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Typically, the federation instructs alternates to prepare as if they have been selected. Most do, especially if the nominee has a history of injury.
 
The question here though isn’t alternate readiness, but bureaucrat readiness. Even NOC’s that accept Federation nominees with no additional requirements or where the NOC’s requirements are clearly met need the NOC to submit the skater’s name as an entry. And if they need to make an actual decision, they need everyone involved to convene, based on their selection procedure.
 
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