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My own experiences with being signed up for athletic events that are being canceled one by one and being involved in the decision-making for the event I am a Race Director for is that there is some truth to this but it's probably not 100% like what people are saying.
I've talked to Race Directors and most of them are not canceling their events outright even if they think there is no way they will happen. What they are doing is keeping them on the schedule until such time as they have to start spending money on them. Then they cancel them. Alternatively, the jurisdiction they are in makes a pronouncement, say no events with over X people until there is a vaccine or no international travel until a certain date (after the date of their event). So when that announcement is made, the Race Director cancels.
They are doing this for a number of reasons. Some of them are financial but also they don't want to limit their options. As an example, my race was first postponed. Until this week I was sure there was no way to do the event on the new date. But now they've opened up enough things that I am starting to think it will happen.
To the skaters, I would say: if it's not canceled, it's because the ISU still thinks there is a chance to have the event. Some people making the decisions are sure they will all be canceled but some are not.
Yeah, I think that's the case for all events.
And I don't see how the ISU could even have an overview over which international events are possible, it is completely out of their control, since the situation in the member countries are so different and so dynamic.
I mean looking at Germany only, it is completely unclear what will be allowed when and the decisions are being taken very dynamically, sometimes it even feels spontanously. And when it comes to events the current plans only go till the end of August and their all unter "we plan to allow XY until end of July and XY until end of August, but of course only if things go well, otherwise we might have to backtrack and of course if regionally the infections rise, then the regions will have to have strict restrictions again". And there's not even rules for the whole country, there is 16 states, that all get to make their own rules on how to lift restrictions. And in terms of events for example some states plan to allow something like (social distancing) events with 500 people until the end of August, others are ambitious and want to allow (social distancing) events with 1000 people until the end of August.
Now realistically something like Nebelhorn Trophy in September is EXTREMELY unlikely, since it's nearly June and we haven't gotten to anything like sports competitions with spectators or international competitors, but right now nobody from the regional or Germany wide government is actually saying that it's definitely impossible.
Like from June 1st in Bavaria events with 50 or 100 people will be allowed again. But if you want to hold one you have to talk to your local town authority on HOW to hold this event and you have to come up with a social distancing/hygiene concept and then they have to approve it and if they do you might get to hold your events, but since there are no rules for September yet, nobody could do this for an event in September now, so I think it's sort of completley impossible to plan anything. Of course now due to that they could just cancel everything, because of the uncertainty of planning, but then what if things develop very well...I think that's the reason they wait until the planning goes into the phase where it would cost money.
As for having some sort of international season, I think if one wanted to have that before 2021, I think the ISU would have to rethink the competitions and go for something more "regional international". Like I absolutely can't imaging that's it realistic to have Europeans fly to North America or North Americans to Europe or Asia in fall, ...but I think it would not be so unrealistic to have for example Italians, French, German, Czech, ... skaters travel to France...that might be possible even for tourists. So you'd have to have North American events for only skaters that train in North America, Asian Events for skaters in Asia and European events for skaters in Europe (yeah that sort of means Australians would only have like nationals probably). It would be far from perfect but maybe have 2 or 3 competitions on every continent in fall, then Nationals for all countries and then maybe something like Worlds at the end of the season, seems to only thing that might be possible IMO.
www.lequipe.fr
I’ve heard several times now from my own connections within the ISU that the JGP and SGP and fall season were not going to be likely, but I also think that’s somewhat of common sense at this point.
. And we probably would have gone in "normal" life so that is a bit disappointing. (We don't anticipate risking plane travel or spending days in an arena until there is a vaccine). If by some miracle the event is held, I will be glued to SportsGold, providing it covers the event, and then probably watch the whole event a second time on TV.
