International Skating Union

Well, I better make sure that I do the necessary research.

And, um, so with that in mind, every event that I, uh, commentate on, we do get the ISU biography, and I don't know if the, the viewers will know.

Tania Flay does an amazing job of collecting the, the stats.

So with every single skater that I commentate upon, we get, you know, place of birth, date of birth, you know, when they started skating, and their competition results and their personal best.

Your, um, there's a, a, a, I don't know how quite to, where to start with that.

But I think, um, this new, this new Olympic cycle, this new season post-Olympics, it's always a, an interesting one because somebody, you know, can step up to the plate.

And I used to remember thinking that when I was a young competitive skater myself, thinking, "Oh, who's going to be, you know, our next Olympic champion? It's the start of a new cycle." And so that brings with it excitement, but I think it's also really challenging for, for the sport and for the ISU to be able to, you know, harness all the excitement of last season.

Because last season, you know, you had so many stories, so many interesting stories and people and characters, and, you know, uh, gosh, there was, there was the Glitter and Gold.

I, I've been, I've been, [chuckles] uh, I've been trying to decipher the whole thing, obviously.

And, and it was p- p- part of that deciphering led me to then ask the ISU for clarification on, on the list, which then this is, this is-

Did they know?

Th- well, this had nothing to do with-

[laughs]

This had nothing to do with me personally, I'm sure.

But I think he, I think the ISU got a number of questions after that first list came out after Kenosha Cup, where it was just Vladislav, uh, Dikii who was-

Mm-hmm

Figure Skating Championships, 21 World Championships, and many other competitions in Olympic sports.

Recently, Phil has been writing about the changes that the ISU has been proposing for the coming seasons.

and the opposition from federations and many athletes to those changes.

In this episode, we get into how this is and is not the same as past times that the ISU has made a lot of changes.

And we also talked a little bit about what we're both looking forward to with the coming 26-27 season.

Phil, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

So I've wanted to talk to you a little bit about the reporting that you've done recently.

You just published a piece on your blog looking at the next season, 27-28 Grand Prix schedule.

Chelsea were fined £10m in July and given a suspended two-window transfer ban in relation to breaches of Premier League rules during the Roman Abramovich era.

And Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who returned to action this year after a long doping ban, has been barred from international competition after losing her status as a neutral athlete, the International Skating Union has announced today.

For more on these stories, news, updates and much more, head over to rtltoday.lu.

It was certainly a very chilly start this morning with temperatures as low as 6 degrees but this is rising currently at around 17 degrees and we can expect a largely clear sunny day with some clouds moving across from time to time and a high temperature of 21 Celsius.

Go on

... passed at the ISU council that jump half loop, jump double axel is a combination.

Yep.

Yep.

AIN status temporarily revoked, and that is not the case.

It was only Mark Kondratiuk who apparently a few days before the start of the Kenosha Group Cup was told by the ISU, hey, we are basically, we've reviewed your case and you're not eligible for

It sounds like Kamila Valieva might have been told at the same time, too.

We just didn't hear about it because she wasn't on an entry list.

So we were kind of waiting to see Mishina Galiama were approved, Stepanova, Bukin were denied.

Right.

So Stepanova, Bukin, Valiyeva, and Kondratyuk have all appealed those decisions up to the ISU.

The ISU was cited in an AP article as saying they would have responses to them midway through next week, which is quite quick.

He still

entered on the ISU website.

Yeah.

Oh.

And Russian News now is reporting that he has withdrawn and that he has been replaced by Vlad Dikidji, who is one of the substitutes.

And as again, as the news has gone on today, we then found out that Ukraine posted an open letter.

They basically publicized a letter that they wrote to the ISU three days ago on August 28th that basically said, we, Ukraine Federation, did not or do not contest the grounds for AIAD criteria.

But we do have questions about particularly eight athletes and the application of said criteria to these eight athletes.

So let's talk about that because this is a great segue.

The ISU took off the how do you get onto the Grand Prix requirements and then put it back in with updates.

Okay.

So that is to say it means that Adelia Petrosian and Peter Gomenik are no longer at the top of the list because...

Because the way that it is written now is that you have to be in the top 75 season best from the previous season.

And the scores had to have been from the ISU Championships, a Challenger Series, or a Grand Prix or Junior Grand Prix.

The Olympics

doesn't count as an ISU championship.

But for the vast majority of competitive skaters, their season often starts and ends earlier than that.

That's because despite all the jokes that we make about how there are so many skaters going through the short program to qualify for the free skate at Europeans or Junior Worlds or Worlds, the actual number of skaters who qualify for those season-ending ISU championships, it's very small compared to the number of competitive skaters who are out there.

Most skaters' biggest goals every season is actually to get to their own national championships, and that's especially true of skaters in the powerhouse countries.

And so that means a lot of the skaters actually end their season in December or January, but their season starts much, much earlier.