Karenina

I don't consider this as Kirsty holding the line so much as the Europeans on the IOC Exec Board making it clear they weren't ready for Russia to return. This was a compromise decision, letting Belarus return. And no, I doubt the general public will notice it at all.

Yeah, I don't follow Solo ID because it just isn't all that interesting to me either. But given how popular it is in the US and how it is growing internationally, a year ago, before the introduction of Synchro9, I could see it having a pathway toward Olympic inclusion. I don't know if we'll see any backflips in Synchro9 - synchro teams consist mostly women and backflips seem to be the domain of men, plus the Synchro Technical Committee could view it as an acrobatic move and prohibit it, even as an element only 1-3 featured skaters perform. Personally, I really liked the demonstration from the US junior team (Teams Elite out of Chicagoland) at Worlds. It had a style that felt very cheer-adjacent and, provided the skaters can remain safe on the ice, I wouldn't mind seeing seeing the synchro evolve a bit in that direction.

Solo Ice Dance does not have any jumps, among other things. Instead of a Short Program & Free Skate it has a Rhythm Dance & Free Dance. Like partnered Ice Dance, the RD has specific rhythm requirements & elements - here's an example of a Solo ID RD from this season. As things currently stand, I'm actually revising my opinion on which discipline the ISU will lobby to add by 2034 to the new Synchro9 category of Synchronized Skating. The ISU is going all-in on it with 3 different teams performing exhibitions at Sr Synchro Worlds earlier this month - a senior team from Finland, a senior team from Canada and a junior team from the US. The ISU has already added it as a new category for the new 2027 Combined Synchro Worlds (both senior & junior divisions will compete at the same event & in the traditional Synchro Skating category (14-16 skaters on the ice) as well as Synchro9. The competition format for Synchro9 is unlike anything I've seen in FS or Synchro - there are starting rounds with a required music theme (street dance for both the 2026-27 and 2027-28 seasons); then there is a semi-final round with a required bpm (110-120 for the next two seasons); and a final/placement round. Each round also has required elements/difficulty features. This is the category that will be included in the 2028 Youth Winter Olympics - I think there are only going to be 6 teams, but it will be interesting to see which countries are able to field teams within the next couple years. More about the new Synchro9 category can be read here - https://isu.org/news/what-is-synchro9-the-new-era-of-synchronized-skating-explained/

Pretty sure that Olympic FS tickets are far more expensive than Olympic ice hockey tickets - mostly because there are fewer FS sessions than hockey games. I sincerely doubt that any random fan looking for a ticket to an "ice sport" event is going to be able to snag FS tickets should all the hockey games be sold out. I really hope the men's hockey winds up in Lyon rather than Paris. It's bad enough that speed-skating is going to be in another country but at least Lyon is located in one of the regions that actually bid to host these Olympics.

The one ice rink in Nice is in an awful state of shape. It's the main training base for Adam Siao Him Fa (Worlds Bronze Medalist in 2024, multi-time European champion). Routinely ceiling tiles fall on the ice surface and the last time the ISU held a Challenger level event there in Oct 2024, there were several competitions (junior level and the senior pairs) which ultimately had to be cancelled due to the rain from heavy thunderstorms in the area causing leaks and puddles all over the ice. A new ice rink/arena in Nice would be a VERY welcome legacy venue for the skaters who train there with Benoit Richaud & Cedric Tour.

The Winter Sports federations have, indeed, objected to the inclusion of Summer Olympics disciplines at the Winter Olympics. https://www.isu.org/news/statement-by-the-winter-olympic-federations/ And, frankly, I'm with them. The ISU has been trying to get synchronized skating added to the Winter Olympics for quite some time now but the IOC's always said no because it would increase the size of the OWG & require another arena. So, why is it now okay to shift volleyball to the OWG and ADD another arena as well as increase the number of athletes overall? I call bull. If Coventry wants to increase the size of the OWG there are plenty of snow/ice sports that can be added, starting with synchro. Looking at a map, it seems like it's six of one, half dozen of another for Kazakhstan to choose between Sochi and the Yanqing Nat'l Sliding Centre. Neither are a short flight away from a potential host (presumably Almaty) city. Right now, geopolitically, I'd wager on the Chinese track being the choice for Kazakh organizers rather than Sochi.

It's a massively complicated issue for figure skating (and will likely also be just as complicated for WAG, artistic swimming & dressage during the Summer Olympics in the future) because there are two different sets of rights that need to be obtained from what I understand. One is the underlying right to use the music then there is an additional clearance to edit the music from the original recording - which is something that happens frequently in figure skating to help amplify the beat or certain sections, as well as transitions from one piece to another or even adding a few extra seconds to get to the program length required. There are a some artists that refuse to allow for ANY alteration of their compositions (the Czech dance team of Mrazkova/Mrazek had to change their Free Dance last season because of this issue and, apparently, another skater this season also had to select different music because the artist, again, refused to issue any clearances), and quite famously, Canadian skater Kevin Reynolds had to change one of his programs a week or two before NHK Trophy several years ago because the Japanese composer refused to issue a clearance. All of that is further complicated by the fact that copyright & intellectual property laws vary from country to country - so what may be approved for use in one country could fall afoul of another country's copyright laws. The ISU has been trying to work through the issue with major labels & publishing houses but, hopefully, this issue spurs the IOC to step in and help facilitate some sort of global clearinghouse for athletes in sports which rely upon music for some of their competitions.

So, just to follow up with an update on which countries have relinquished quota spots in each discipline: Ice Dancing - Finland relinquished their 2nd spot as neither the #2 or #3 ice dance teams have full citizenship. The spot went to Sweden and the SOK have chosen to use it after Milla Ruud Reitan, who is Norwegian, received her Swedish citizenship earlier this month. Reitan and partner, Nikolaj Majorov, have been named under the Future Athletes criteria as they're quite a promising ice dance team. Majorov was a singles skater until a few years ago and represented Sweden in Men's Singles in Beijing four years ago. The ice dancing field is now set with 23 teams and a battle for gold set up between the USA's Madison Chock/Evan Bates (3-time & reigning World Champions) and France's Laurence Fournier-Beaudry/Guillaume Cizeron - she formerly represented Denmark & then Canada with her significant other, Nikolaj Sorensen, who is appealing a 6-year ban for sexually assaulting another skater in 2014 and, of course, Cizeron is the 2022 Olympic Champion & 2018 Olympic Silver Medalist with his former partner, Gabriella Papadakis, who has written & just released a memoir which serves as a window into the very toxic world of ice dancing. The translated excerpts I've read do not paint their training center, Ice Academy of Montreal, or Cizeron in the most flattering light. There is also a real contest for the bronze between Canada's Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier (2024 & 2025 World Silver Medalists), Great Britain's Lilah Fear/Lewis Gibson (2025 World Bronze Medalists) and Italy's Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri (2023 World Silver Medalists, 2024 World Bronze Medalists). And Netflix has a 3-part documentary produced by the same team that gave us the Simone Biles' documentary before & after Paris 2024 called "Glitter & Gold" featuring Chock/Bates, Fournier-Beaudry/Cizeron and Gilles/Poirier debuting Jan 26th. Being an American, I'm naturally rooting for Chock/Bates - I also think they have one of the best free dances of the season to a paso doble/flamenco arrangement of "Paint It Black" by Ramin Djawadi. Pairs - We haven't heard official word but Uzbekistan's new pairs team is unable to compete internationally yet, so France will pick up that relinquished spot. All of the other teams that had question marks about citizenship or minimum scores have been confirmed by their NOCs. That leaves the pairs field set with 19 teams of which there are seven medal contenders including Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek/Maxime Deschamps (2024 World Champions), China's Wenjing Sui/Cong Han (2022 Olympic Champions & 2018 Olympic Silver Medalists), Georgia's Anastasiia Metelkina/Luka Berulava (newly crowned 2026 European Champions), Germany's Minerva Fabienne Hase/Nikita Volodin (2025 World Silver Medalists & 2024 World Bronze Medalists), Hungary's Maria Pavlova/Alexei Sviatchenko (2026 European Bronze Medalists), Italy's Sara Conti/Niccolo Macii (2023 & 2025 World Bronze Medalists) and Japan's Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara (2023 & 2025 World Champions). Pairs is my favorite discipline and I'm rooting for Conti/Macii to win at home. Men - To the best of my knowledge, all of the countries who qualified spots at 2025 Worlds and in September at the Olympic Qualifying Event have confirmed the use of their spots. Latvia was the only one in question but their 2nd man from Worlds last year who earned the 2nd spot received his Latvian citizenship last month and they have a 3rd man who has earned the CTES minimums, so there doesn't seem to be any hurdle to them using both spots. The heavy favorite for gold is the USA's Ilia Malinin, aka the "QuadG0d", two-time & reigning World Champion. About the only thing that will stop him from winning is himself, but it's the Olympic stage, so I'm superstitious enough to never say never but also crossing my fingers & praying that I'll be able to let go of the grudge I've been holding against US Figure Skating for the last 4 years since they left him off the 2022 Olympic team after his spectacular 2nd place finish to Nathan Chen at Nationals that year. Experience matters. Silver & bronze favor Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato. On paper, Kagiyama, the 2022 Olympic Silver Medalist, should be able to repeat, however he has struggled with delivering clean programs all season & clean skates from Sato could best him in Milano-Cortina. Similarly, on paper, Sato should bring home a 2nd medal for Japan in the men's event for the 3rd Olympics in a row. If either of them falter, look to Georgia's Nika Egadze (newly crowned 2026 European Champion), France's Adam Siao Him Fa (2024 World Bronze Medalist), Italy's Daniel Grassl, Korea's Junhwan Cha (2023 World Silver Medalist) or even AIN (Russia) Petr Gumennik as dark horses. Word of warning - there's a saying in figure skating these days "the men are menning" which means the men are HIGHLY inconsistent from competition segment to competition segment. There is almost always a lot of movement between the short program standings and the final standings; additionally, apart from Malinin, clean short programs almost always are a precursor to a messy AF free skate, and vice versa. Buckle up because the men's Olympic competition is going to be a WILD ride. Women - There are still two spots that could be reallocated - Switzerland's second spot. The Swiss OC and Swiss Ice Skating are supposed to meet later this week to decide whether or not Livia Kaiser will be named to the team after helping to earn the spot at Worlds last year. They set an incredibly high minimum score for their women to achieve & Kaiser has been battling back from injury all season so she hasn't been able to achieve the score minimum. If that spot is relinquished, it will go to Cyprus. There was some question about Israel's spot because their top skater doesn't have Israeli citizenship yet, but news today is that the bureaucratic snafu has been resolved & she should have her passport expedited in time for the Olympics. If, for some reason, it doesn't happen, the second alternate is Norway. There are seven medal contenders in the women's event - Estonia's Niina Petrokina (2025 & 2026 European Champion), Japan's Kaori Sakamoto, Mone Chiba & Ami Nakai, and the USA's Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn & Isabeau Levito. No, I'm not including AIN (Russia) Adeliia Petrosian. She's been dealing with injury since last spring and even before her injury, the rotations on her quads & triple Axel looked suspect, not to mention, she's got the pressure of the entire nation on her to continue Russia's streak of Olympic Champions in the women's event dating back to Sochi 2014. Beyond that, the Japanese and American women have been on an entirely different level than the rest of the world this season until Petrokina's return from injury to defend her European title this past weekend where she skated brilliantly. If anyone is going to prevent the Olympic medals from being split between Japan & the USA, it would be Petrokina. I'll go through the Japanese & American women in order of least likely to most likely to medal. Least likely - Nakai (2025 Grand Prix Final Silver Medalist) & Levito (2024 World Silver Medalist). Nakai has an inconsistent triple Axel and while she's beaten Sakamoto earlier in the season, she's also been known to succumb to pressure situations. Levito has the lowest score ceiling of the six women, but she's a really lovely skater who has been known to skate up in pressure situations, plus Milano is her mother's hometown & her Nonna lives just 12 minutes away from the arena, so she's going to have nearly as much crowd support as Italy's own Lara Naki Gutmann. Mid likely - Chiba (2025 World Bronze Medalist) & Glenn (2024 Grand Prix Final Champion). Chiba's usually a fairly steady competitor, but she's sometimes prone to jump rotation calls and struggled at both the Grand Prix Final and Japanese Nationals with laying down clean free skates, so the pressure of the Olympic season seems to be getting to her a bit. Glenn has faltered in the short program with her triple Axel in major competitions during the past two seasons and found herself having to come from behind. Most likely - Sakamoto (2022-24 World Champion, 2025 World Silver Medalist) & Liu (2025 World Champion & 2022 World Bronze Medalist). There probably aren't enough superlatives to describe these two women. Both come in with a wealth of experience to draw upon. Sakamoto has struggled recently with inconsistency in the short program but she's managed to claw her way back onto the podium every time. Liu is as cool under pressure as they come and has become the most consistent women's skater competing today. During US Nationals, Tara Lipinski commented, slightly under her breath, during Liu's free skate, that she thought Alysa would win the Olympics and, I gotta say, I agree with her. Liu just seems to shrug off pressure and expectations in a way I haven't in a long time. If I had to make a wager right now, I'd tell the rest of you to put your money on Liu, Sakamoto and... I don't know. They are all FANTASTIC skaters and between them and a bunch of refreshingly great sportswomen like Petrokina, Belgium's Loena Hendrickx & Nina Pinzarrone, Gutmann, Switzerland's Kimmy Repond, Korea's Jia Shin, Canada's Madeline Schizas, and Georgia's Anastasiia Gubanova, you're going to experience a far different event from the one we lived through in 2022 and it just makes me smile to see how the women's discipline has healed itself during the Russia ban. Team Event - Ten countries and lots of intrigue & a very competitive race to see which countries qualify for the Free Skate/Free Dance Segment as well as who brings home the medals. Gold is a two-country neck-and-neck race between the USA & Japan. Right now, my handicapping has Japan winning in a tie-breaker, that's how close it is. Georgia & Italy will be battling for the bronze and that may come down to whether it's France or Canada that takes the fifth spot in the FS/FD portion. Korea would be competitive for the FS/FD portion if they had a pairs team, but they don't, so they're just there to throw a monkey wrench in the Men's & Women's TE SP rankings with their skaters. Same with China, except they have a pairs team - Sui/Han - who will throw the monkey wrench in the Pairs TE SP rankings; and also for Great Britain, whose top dance team - Fear/Gibson - will be shaking up the Ice Dance TE RD rankings. Poland is only there for the fun, but both their pairs team, Ioulia Chtchetinina/Michal Wozniak, and their woman, Ekaterina Kurakova, have the potential to also play spoiler.

Resident FS expert chiming in here - Lausanne makes perfect sense for figure skating as it's the host city for the 2027 European Figure Skating Championships. The city has hosted Euros in 1992 & 2002 and Worlds in 1997. The only other Swiss city to have hosted an ISU Championship in the last 40 years was Bern, who hosted Euros in 2011.

That's actually ASHLEY Wagner.

No ****, Sherlock. It doesn't matter though. Rink dimensions are usually pretty standard around the world with NHL and Olympic size being the most common. Given that we're talking about the Olympics, it isn't unreasonable to believe that the main ice hockey rink would adhere to the Olympic-sized rink dimensions.

It's actually a pretty big deal and it would be for short track & figure skating too. Many non-North American based figure skaters have difficulty adjusting to the smaller NHL-sized rinks in Canada & the USA. We've seen issues just this season for some of the pairs skaters at Skate America, adjusting to the smaller rink surface in Lake Placid, while performing their lifts, and there were singles skaters at Worlds in Boston last year who nearly crashed into the boards on their jump landings. I can't imagine how much worse it would be with a rink that is 3-4 feet shorter than the smaller NHL-sized rinks. I don't understand how this kind of a mistake could have been made on such an important Olympic venue.

Sorry been busy and just now popped in here and saw this. As @Olympian said - most of the spots were already allocated based upon the results of Boston Worlds 2025 this past March. The only countries who have "locked in" their candidates are Russia & Belarus - because those athletes are competing as AINs, so the spots they earned go to the athlete specifically rather than the national federations who establish their own criteria for selecting their Olympians. The way the allocation process works is there are 24 of 29 spots for Men & Women respectively, 16 of 19 spots for Pairs, and 19 of 23 spots for Ice Dance which are determined at Worlds of the preceding year (in this case Boston 2025). There's a somewhat complicated formula and allocation process (all outlined in this doc - https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Games/Milano-Cortina-2026/qualification-system/Qualification-System-for-Figure-Skating.pdf) that determines how many spots different country's national federations earn in each discipline at Worlds. 3 spots outright = Top 2 placements total 13 or less plus all 3 entries make the Free Skate 2 spots outright + 1 entry at the Olympic Qualifying Event (called Skate to Milano this year) = Top 2 placements total 13 or less and 2 entries make the Free Skate 2 spots outright = Top 2 placements total 14-28 points and 2 entries make the Free Skate 1 spot outright + 1 entry at the Olympic Qualifying Event = Top 2 entries placements total 14-28 points and 1 entry makes the Free Skate OR Sole entry places in the Top 10 1 spot outright Men/Women = Sole entry makes the Free Skate 1 spot outright Pairs/Ice Dance = depends on the # of multiple entries earned outright by different countries & not every country that makes the Free Skate/Free Dance will earn an entry because there are 20 teams that qualify for the Free Skate/Free Dance at Worlds but only 16 & 19 spots allocated at Worlds The remaining 5 spots in Men/Women, 3 spots in Pairs and 4 spots in Ice Dance are then allocated at the Olympic Qualifying Event in the fall. The ISU decided 4 years ago to make this a standalone event instead of holding it as a competition within a competition at Nebelhorn Trophy. I actually like this decision because holding it as part of Nebelhorn meant that entries for one of the significant early season Challenger competitions were limited which isn't ideal. The ISU hasn't declared that any athletes will or will not qualify in their national quotas - the only control the ISU has from this point onward now that the final spots have been allocated is setting the minimum technical standard which must be achieved for any entrants (called the CTES = Combined Technical Elements Score). The ISU sets the CTES for all ISU Championships & the Olympics - Worlds is higher than Europeans/4 Continents/Olympics and Jr Worlds is the lowest. As long as a federation has earned a quota spot and has a skater/team who've earned the CTES minimum, they can use that spot. If a country does not have anyone who meets the CTES minimums (the deadline for earning these is Jan 26, 2026) then they will, of course, have to relinquish their quota spot and it will go to the next country in line based upon the results of the Olympic Qualifying Event from last month. As of this moment, the only quota spot earned from Worlds or the OQE that looks like it will definitely be relinquished is Uzbekistan's pairs spot because their only pairs team, who earned the spot in Boston, split up over the summer - he has retired & she's rumored to have a new partner who last competed for Spain last February which means he isn't eligible to compete for another country until next February after the CTES deadline has passed. If UZB relinquishes the spot then the first alternate is France and they'll definitely use the spot. There are a few quota spots earned that MAY wind up being relinquished because the only skaters/teams with CTES minimums do not have citizenship yet (Finland's second ice dance spot, Australia's pairs spot, Latvia's second men's spot) or because the NOC has set a higher score standard which hasn't been achieved yet (Switzerland's second women's spot, Netherlands' pairs spot) - in case you're wondering, why, yes, I do have a spreadsheet tracking this, lol. At this point in time, there are some countries where their Olympic spots have already been announced. The most notable example of this is Spain. As soon as the OQE was finished and they successfully earned a 2nd ice dance spot, their fed announced that it had been determined during the late spring that the skaters/teams who earned the spots (Tomas Llorenc Guarino-Sabate in Men at Worlds and Olivia Smart/Tim Dieck in Ice Dance at Worlds and Sofia Val/Asaf Kazimov at the OQE) would be their Olympic team despite having at least 1 other dance team that has the CTES mins. There are a lot of countries where there is only one skater/team who have the CTES mins - Mexico's Donovan Carrillo, South Korea's Hannah Lim/Ye Quan, etc - so those skaters/teams are, obviously, going to be named to the Olympic team, provided there aren't any injuries. If there was an injury and the skater/team couldn't use the spot, it would just be relinquished by the federation and the ISU would then reallocate it to the next one in line. For larger countries like the US, Canada, Japan, etc - most have moved to a "Body of Work" selection process where their Nationals results aren't the final arbiter of who makes the team. We're well into the figure skating season at this point, so there's a lot of data already being accumulated & tabulated. - Italy has a somewhat complicated calculation for their team selection and the FISG has given themselves some wiggle room to basically do what they want and ignore the calculations if they want for their Olympic team selections. - Japan's process is also rather complicated - and I'm not sure I've seen the JSF's Olympic selection doc yet, but if it's like their Worlds selection doc from recent seasons, only the Nat'l Champ is guaranteed a spot on the team and if someone else is the highest ranked Japanese skater at the Grand Prix Final, they're also guaranteed a spot, and a 3rd spot is left up to their Int'l Committee to decide. - South Korea has a ranking competition in late November/early December and Nationals in January and the combined results of both will determine who makes the Olympic team. - China announced a couple weeks ago that they will add the scores from Cup of China (2nd Grand Prix event which just wrapped up earlier today) and their Nationals and the highest cumulative scoring skater/team will get their 1 Olympic spot in each discipline. - The USFS has a fairly complicated calculation that determines 5 of the skaters/teams who are eligible for selection based upon (mostly) this season's results, but there are other ways to make one's way into the Selection Pool - and, ultimately, the USFS' International Committee makes the final decision of who will be on the team. At this point, most educated skating fans would tell you that there are certain skaters who are already "locked" for their countries' Olympic teams - Japan's Kaori Sakamoto, Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara; USA's Ilia Malinin and Madison Chock/Evan Bates; etc, but nothing's set in stone until December/January for most countries after they've held their National Championships. Since we're just on the 2nd weekend of the Grand Prix Series, there's still a lot of skating and opportunities for skaters to make their own cases for consideration - the women's fields for USA, JPN and KOR are all super-intriguing with multiple contenders for the spots each country has. Also, the Team Event selection process is a different animal begat of the individual event quota allocation process. The Team Event qualification process awards points to countries based upon their highest result in each discipline at Worlds (or Euros/4CCs if no points earned from Worlds, or Jr Worlds if no points earned from either Worlds or Euros/4CCs) and the Grand Prix Series (or the Jr Grand Prix if no points earned from the Grand Prix). This only matters if there are more than 10 countries with spots in at least 3 disciplines. Right now, there are only 10 countries who have earned spots in at least 3 of the 4 disciplines (USA, JPN, GEO, ITA, CAN, FRA, GBR, CHN, KOR & POL), so it's pretty likely that those 10 countries will be the ones participating in the Team Event; but if the quota reallocation process goes deep enough into the alternates lists then Poland (in the 10th position right now) could be knocked out because they have the lowest amount of points. I hope this helps explain how the Olympic allocation process works and the ISU's role, as well as where we are in the selection process for most countries. You are indeed correct that there is still a lot to be decided. All that's really been determined, right now, are which countries are "in" and where countries are on the alternates list for quota reallocation.

This is slightly misleading. Four Russian skaters (2 men & 2 women) and five Belarusian skaters (2 men, 1 woman, 1 ice dance team) have been approved for AIN status, however Russia & Belarus are only allowed, like every other ISU member federation, to send 1 entrant to the Olympic Qualifying Event (named Skate to Milano) being held in Beijing next month. The entries for this event were published last week and Belarus has not entered their ice dance team (no idea why - probably injury). The #2 man & woman are substitutes & if anything happens to the #1 man & woman BEFORE this competition then they may compete. However, if the #1 man & woman do compete in the OQE and earn a spot the substitutes cannot be swapped in for the Olympics as the spots for the AINs are nominative to the athlete rather than the member federation. Looking at the entry fields for the men & women, it would be surprising if the Russian man (Petr Gumennik), Russian woman (Adeliia Petrosian) and Belarusian woman (Viktoria Safonova - '22 Olympian) don't earn spots. Safonova may be the most questionable as there aren't a lot of videos out there of her competitions the last 3 seasons, though looking at the detailed judges results, she seems to have maintained her skills at a high enough level that she SHOULD qualify. I'm not sure how many Russian & Belarusian skaters have been approved for speed skating or short-track. Speed skating's qualifying competitions are 4 World Cup events in November & December. Short Track's qualifying competitions are at 4 World Cup events in October & November Russia & Belarus remain banned from all other ISU competitions. The next ISU Council meeting is in October, IIRC, so if a peace deal is to be had between now & then, they could perhaps return to competition at that time.

Coventry it is. Barf.