Karenina

I'll withhold judgement on the Delta Center for FS since it was renovated in 2016-17, but... Yeah, major complaints from many figure skating fans who have attended competitions there about a lot of the seating having obstructed sight lines/views.

Skate Canada and the COC have stated they are exploring their legal options. I fully expect an appeal to be filed.

The ISU is violating its own rules & regs for the calculation of the Team Event results. With a DSQ, the athletes who finished behind the DSQ athlete are supposed to be moved up in the standings. In the case of the TE, 1st place gets 10 pts all the way down to 10th place getting 1 point. With Valieva DSQ all 9 of the countries should get an additional point for the Short Program and the other 4 countries in the Free Skate should get another additional point. Those 2 extra points would move Canada ahead of Russia by 1 point overall. It's very clear reading the Team Event document and the Rule cited by Skate Canada that the ISU did not re-calculate the points correctly and Canada should be awarded the bronze. Any appeal filed by Skate Canada has a high probability of success. This might be resolved by the summer but I'll be surprised if it's taken care of before Worlds in March. I honestly won't be surprised if the medal ceremony doesn't happen until Milano-Cortina, especially if Russia decides to fight until the bitter end.

My first epiphany of the day was that E reminds of the famed McDonald's Golden Arches. None of the logos really sing for me and my second epiphany of the day was that I wish someone had embraced the palette of Monet's Antibes paintings - the purples, blues, pinks and greens - as inspiration. Alas, I'm not a graphic designer and that epiphany came to me after the deadline closed so I'll just have to hope that's the direction the actual logo goes toward.

Speaking as the resident figure skating fan, I think Nice is fine as the anchor city. They have a lovely ice rink with views of the Mediterranean that is host to a minor international competition every October (certainly not large enough to host any Olympic events, but I'd be shocked if it isn't used as a practice rink). The current European men's champion, Adam Siao Him Fa, trains there along with several other elite level skaters. Comparatively, I'll gladly take Nice for picture postcard views and scenery over Beijing and Sochi (and Turin and SLC, for that matter) any day. I don't see the need for all the hand-wringing over the lack of snowy winter scenes in Nice itself - the Alps aren't far away and will provide plenty of real, mountainous wintry wonder - and certainly will be far prettier than anything we got from the Beijing snow sites. It will be as lovely of a juxtaposition with the palm trees and sunny coastline of Nice as the sea to sky views we had from Vancouver. All in all, I'm excited for Nice-Alpes.

Actually, per the INC'S news conference, they have until the END of 2027. So, if they work out a more compact venue plan and have a successful public referendum, we can expect them to be raised to Targeted Dialogue in/around December 2027 with a vote at the IOC Session during LA 2028. That will give Switzerland 2038 nine and a half years to prepare.

One thing I noted from the IOC press conference today was that apparently the vast majority of French corporate sponsors signed on for Paris 2024 have also indicated they'reon board with Nice-Alpes 2030. I'm sure that was a significant factor in today's decision, along with the government guaranty. Switzerland basically needs a public referendum in support of 2038 plus a slight re-working of the venue plan and them they'll be all set, and they've got 4 years to get it done.

Figure skating fans are already speculating that SLC native and Olympic champion Nathan Chen, who was inspired to take up the sport by the 2002 Olympics, will be a front-runner to light the cauldron.

Lyon has hosted the ISU Grand Prix Final once, back in the 1999-00 season, and it also hosted the European FS Championships in 2006. Marseille hosted the GPF in 2016-17, and Nice hosted Worlds in 2001 at a convention center, IIRC because it was really short notice when Australia had to withdraw from hosting less than a year before . Between the three cities, plus the FFSG successfully hosting Worlds in Montpellier in 2022, I'd say that there's no lack of ability to host the ice events between the three major cities in the regions. In a perfect world, the IOC would stop forcing figure skating and short-track to share a venue - put short-track in Nice, FS in Lyon or Marseille, and hockey in the third city.

I agree about Synchro needing approximately 120 spaces in the OV, minimum, presuming they intro with just 6 teams (which seems reasonable). As far as the Team Event is concerned, countries can't qualify unless they have entries qualified in at least 2 individual disciplines and they can only add an extra skater/team in one discipline for the TE, with a max of 5 additional TE and/or host quota spots for figure skating total - so the max # of figure skaters is capped at 30 men, 30 women, 24 dance teams, and 19 pairs teams = 151 athletes+support personnel. It's hard to say how many support personnel wind up at the Olympics in total because so many elite skaters share coaches/training centers. With all due respect (and that's not much for someone who calls the Team Event "silly")... There are 16 countries with entrants in at least 3 disciplines at Worlds this year - Canada, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, & USA. Korea should have entrants in 3, maybe all 4 disciplines next season (their jr dance team just won the silver at Jr Worlds and will be moving up to seniors next season, and they have a new pairs team that hasn't competed internationally yet). There are some other countries that could wind up fielding entrants in 3 or 4 disciplines by next year's Worlds (Sweden, Finland, Israel, Austria, Switzerland, Australia & Spain). Korea is so strong, by the way, in the singles disciplines, along with the success of their junior dance team, that they're looking pretty solid to qualify for World Team Trophy this year (6 teams, held in odd-numbered years, points earned the same way the Olympic TE are earned) without any pairs points. The sport, overall, is showing a remarkable level of depth, across all disciplines, even without the presence of Russia. If I had to guess who would qualify for the 2026 TE almost 3 years out... Canada, France, Georgia, Italy, Korea, Japan, USA and then three of China, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, & Ukraine. And, right now, Japan would be the betting favorite to win the gold, with Italy and Korea coming on strong as potential medal spoilers, along with the USA. But, take all that with a grain of salt, because if you'd asked skating fans in 2019 who were potential medal spoilers for Beijing, China and Italy would have been high on that list and China barely made the FS round, while Italy couldn't even qualify a woman for the individual event and had to use a quota spot for their TE woman, and Georgia was on the radar of NO ONE and barely missed out on the FS round to China. China can only send one entrant to Worlds in every discipline this year because they didn't send anyone to compete at Worlds last year. Their pairs program is definitely in a rebuilding phase with Sui/Han taking some time off and Peng/Jin recovering from injury. There's potential in the three teams they've sent out to compete internationally this season, but they're not on the same level as their predecessors yet. As it is, the pairs discipline has been interesting enough without the Russians. Italy is building a VERY healthy pairs program and the US and Canada have some promising newer and/or younger teams. The Netherlands has two pairs teams that have started to gel this season and will both be at Worlds. I don't think anyone would make an argument that the discipline is technically better without the Russians, but I actually think it is, long-term, healthier for the discipline, to have them out of international competition right now. There are competitive opportunities that have been opened up to these other teams and they are improving, tremendously, by having these experiences. The Russians just sort of sucked all the air out of the room, same with the women's discipline, and while it's not always easy to watch skaters struggle to find their competitive nerve, it certainly does make for more unpredictable and exciting competitions when it's sort of anyone's competition to win.

If I were to hazard a guess, it would be easiest to move all of the short-track events over to Riga and leave the figure skating events in Stockholm, especially if synchro skating gets added with the new Elite 12 division the ISU has added to make it more viable as an Olympic sport. Figure skating already starts before the opening ceremonies because of the team event and the fact that the arena is shared with short-track. And short-track would like to add more Olympic medal events, especially the mixed team relays, etc. Synchro is very popular in Sweden, so it would make sense to add it to the Olympic program and have that event held in Stockholm.

Truth. I can at least say, without hesitation, that the chances of the ISU letting Russia compete in their Four Continents Championships in the skating sports is non-existent. There's no way that Japan, Korea, Canada or the USA want to face Russian skaters in those continental championships. Also, I suspect this is being driven by summer sports feds that have been bought and paid for with Russian & Chinese money/influence. The winter sports feds are dominated by European nations who have no use for Russia these days.

Not even close to settled. WADA will likely take it to CAS once they get the full, reasoned decision from RUSADA. Pretty ballsy of RUSADA, to be honest - they only nullified her Russian Nationals title from last season and didn't even have the decency to at least suspend her for 30 days and also nullify her Europeans title.

How is the bid not dead yet if the BC gov't isn't willing to foot the bill? Is there some other funding source you've read about that hasn't been reported in the press? Is Trudeau going to have the federal gov't pay for this? Doubtful.

It certainly seems like they don't have a lot of confidence in Sapporo at the moment. So, let's see what our potential 5-nation rotation looks like... Munich, SLC, Sapporo, Vancouver, and ??? Almaty? Oslo? Milan?

Jr World Figure Skating Championships will be hosted by Calgary in February.

I saw this headline and honestly thought someone was confused about the date of April Fool's Day... I guess we know where all the money we're paying for oil is going these days. Where's the :shrug: emoji around here?

Well, there's this... https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1128694/ioc-bach-russian-athletes-return-hint

I'm fairly confident, recalling both the LA 84 ceremonies and the SLC 02 ceremonies, plus knowing how very different in character and history those two cities are that LA 28 and SLC 30/34 will also have very different ceremonies. Sort of how Calgary 88 and Vancouver 10 were really different from each other.

Not really. Atlanta does not equal LA, and citizens of both cities would make that clear to anyone asking. And I suspect that you'd hear the same from the citizens of Sydney and Brisbane. The only city/region that's the same in this equation is SLC. Even Nagano and Sapporo are very different parts of Japan (two different islands, for starters).

I don't think so. In most of my social circles, China's got a terrible reputation. Hosting the OWG did nothing to improve their reputation in the USA and it certainly didn't in figure skating circles. My concern with this new law is how it would apply to any athlete who criticizes China and, later down the line, earns a berth at an international competition being hosted in China. For instance, China has been provisionally allocated to host the ISU's 2024 Four Continents Championships - what if some skater from Canada or the US re-tweeted a political comment that was critical of China and later earned one of their country's berths to the event? How could this law be applied to them? Would they, potentially, have to decline the event assignment out of fear of reprisal?

Well, I don't think that hurt, but it didn't give the Sapporo 2030 effort as big of a boost as they were probably hoping to get. As it is, I suspect that we're going to see the IOC let this ride out until December. If the Sapporo No Olympics group gains some momentum, then SLC will get 2030 and the IOC will go back to the drawing board for 2034.

The ISU Congress finished up yesterday with elections for the Council and Technical Committees. Shamefully, the full Congress elected Alexander Kibalko of Russia to the ISU Council on the Speed Skating side. He was elected on the 2nd vote, in a run-off against Serbia's Slobodan Delic, so I suppose it was a matter of picking either the puppet or the puppet master. The Speed Skating Branch then elected to the Speed Skating Technical Committee Belarusian Alexei Khatylev, again on 2nd ballot run-off. Thankfully, the Figure Skating Branch chose to NOT elect the Russians running for both the Synchro and Single/Pairs Technical Committees. Alexander Kogan of the Russian Figure Skating Federation called this week's Congress "Unfortunately... very politicized." Yeah, well... go talk to Putin about that. In other news, the new ISU President, Jae Youl Kim of Korea, had this to say about the current ISU ban: And given that the new ISU Council is made up of members from KOR, CAN (2 - Figure Skating VP and Athletes Commission representative), USA, JPN, FIN, HUN, ESP, NOR, THA, ITA, BUL, NED, and RUS, I don't see the Council revisiting that decision in the foreseeable future.

Well, the Extraordinary Event clause failed (by 6 votes) yesterday at the ISU Congress, however the ISU Council's decision to ban RUS/BLR skaters, judges, etc does remain in effect as the Congress approved all of the ISU Council's Communications issued since the last Congress in 2018. In other news, the age minimum increase was passed, overwhelmingly. I'm convinced that the Valieva doping scandal led to the passage of the proposal, though it was in the works for quite some time prior to the Olympics. On tap for 6/8 and 6/9 are separate sessions for the Figure Skating (includes Synchro) and Speed Skating (includes Short-Track) branches, with lots of technical rule proposals, especially on the FS side. Elections for the Technical Committees in each branch will be 6/9; then on Friday, the entire Congress comes back together to vote on a few tabled motions as well as hold elections. Notably, Alexander Lakernik of Russia will not be able to stand for re-election as FS VP since the Congress rejected the motion to allow ISU Officials to serve past the age of 80.

The ISU just issued a notice that their legal advisers have concluded that Russia & Belarus will be allowed to participate in the Congress. Because Russia has filed a CAS appeal of the ISU Council's decision to ban skaters upon the IOC's recommendation, there is a possibility that disallowing the Russian & Belarusian federations participation in the Congress it could nullify any of the decisions taken this week as well as the election of new officers, etc. The Urgent Matter to add the "Extraordinary Event" clause will still be voted upon and if it passes then it will come into effect at the conclusion of this week's Congress. No one is happy about this, but it makes sense. Ought to make for some interesting debates, especially over the age minimum & maximum proposals - not just for athletes, but also for ISU Officials - one would raise the age max for ISU Officials, which would allow Russia's Alexander Lakernik to stand for re-election as Figure Skating VP. Russia also has members standing for election to the ISU Council (Speed Skating Member), Technical Committees for Synchro, Single/Pairs Skating, Short Track (Chair), & Speed Skating (Chair).