ISU has cancelled 2021 Europeans, ISU Grand Prix Final, World Junior Synchro; Stockholm Worlds still on for now

[rfisher]

Papadakis/Cizeron not showing at worlds is understandable, but the implications for France at the Team event will suffer if they end up with only one entry they will have to skate Team (rhythm dance portion) and the 'real' Ice Dance competition

I can't see Lauriault/LeGac or Lopareva/Thauron making the top 10

Well, France was pretty well hosed on the team event anyway. No pair team, Amoyz is unpredictable and any lady is likely to finish last. They had a good chance with P/C and J/C and Kevin, but not so much now. If I were P/C and their team, I wouldn't worry about it and focus on the individual medal.

 

[Karen-W]

Well, France was pretty well hosed on the team event anyway. No pair team, Amoyz is unpredictable and any lady is likely to finish last. They had a good chance with P/C and J/C and Kevin, but not so much now. If I were P/C and their team, I wouldn't worry about it and focus on the individual medal.

Good point. They probably aren't even going to qualify for the Team Event with their weakness in the pairs and ladies individual events.

Right now, I'm hard pressed to think there are 10 countries that will qualify for the Team Event.

 

[misskarne]

World Championships in Sweden for Skicross are a GO officially, today they made it official and will run this next february

And skicross is outdoor

 

[skatingguy]

Good point. They probably aren't even going to qualify for the Team Event with their weakness in the pairs and ladies individual events.

Right now, I'm hard pressed to think there are 10 countries that will qualify for the Team Event.

It's pretty easy for a country to earn a spot in the Team Event with just one strong entry in Worlds/Grand Prix (under normal circumstances of course). Javier Fernandez put Spain in the running for a spot for the past two Olympics but the country was ineligible because they didn't qualify entries in 3 of the disciplines.

 

[Carolla5501]

Contract tracing protocol is precisely the controversy at the Australian Open now.

7 positive cases resulted in 72 players being deemed close contacts and then being required to hard quarantine for 14 days.

So the contract tracing protocol is really relevant to the staging of the event.

For example if a coach on the Plushenko team tests positive or another passenger on the same plane, does that then withdraw every member of that team and anyone who shared a plane or a bus with them? It's the question that's very important for athletes assessing the risk/benefit of attending. It might seem boring now, but it will be extremely important if Worlds happen.

And just so athletes can't say later they didn't know, I think any procedure does need to be clearly and publicly articulated in the public ISU announcements.

Why do they need to be clearly and publicly articulate. The skaters and the coach need to know. The Federation people who are attending need to know, the judges need to know, the people that work at the Arena need to know. On

Do you fit into any of the above categories.


If not you don’t need to know, what do you have the desire to know so you can complain.

I’m sure the ISU will give detailed information to the people involved. They can then evaluate that and make the decision of what they want to do.

Now if you’re really a world team member and you have a need to know, I would suggest that you contact your figure skating federation. But something tells me since you’re posting on here with this lot that you aren’t participating in the event

 

[tony]

Why do they need to be clearly and publicly articulate. The skaters and the coach need to know. The Federation people who are attending need to know, the judges need to know, the people that work at the Arena need to know.

Yeah, and I don't imagine it would be difficult for the skaters, officials, coaches, etc to have an additional form to sign with all of the procedures- and I'm sure that's how it will work. If they don't sign, they can't go. So the argument of them saying they didn't know becomes void.

 

[starrynight]

I’m really confused. Is it unusual for a skating fan on a forum to want to know how skating competitions are going to occur and how forced withdrawals (if any) will affect the skaters?

Or have I just struck a nerve by pointing out one of the most serious logistical factors for worlds?

 

[tony]

I’m really confused. Is it unusual for a skating fan on a forum to want to know how skating competitions are going to occur?

Or have I just struck a nerve by pointing out one of the most serious logistical factors for worlds?

To be fair, you ended your post with saying that it needs to be public so that the skaters can't say they didn't know. Nothing about how you or any other fans personally wanted to know, but obviously that's what you want- as you've now stated.

If the skaters/anyone going signs the handbook form saying they understand all procedures, then you don't need to worry about them not knowing.

 

[olympic]

In re YKW, I really think there is going to be a big difference between late March and late April, just due to the fact that the world will be further along with vaccinations. I wish they would set up Worlds a la 2011. I know I'm repeating myself.

 

[starrynight]

All the rules, schedules, prize money, penalties, food arrangements, flights, transfers, drug testing, hotel arrangements, meal payments etc for ISU events have always been written into a document and published on the ISU website.

I don’t see why the rules around forced withdrawals/quarantine should be a secret. It would be out of step with the way the ISU has always operated.

Heck, fans have always known precisely how many meals the athletes get paid for.

 

[Orm Irian]

In re YKW, I really think there is going to be a big difference between late March and late April, just due to the fact that the world will be further along with vaccinations. I wish they would set up Worlds a la 2011. I know I'm repeating myself.

Some parts of the world will be. Not all. Not even most.

Contract tracing protocol is precisely the controversy at the Australian Open now.

7 positive cases resulted in 72 players being deemed close contacts and then being required to hard quarantine for 14 days.

So the contract tracing protocol is really relevant to the staging of the event.

For example if a coach on the Plushenko team tests positive or another passenger on the same plane, does that then withdraw every member of that team and anyone who shared a plane or a bus with them? It's the question that's very important for athletes assessing the risk/benefit of attending. It might seem boring now, but it will be extremely important if Worlds happen.

And just so athletes can't say later they didn't know, I think any procedure does need to be clearly and publicly articulated in the public ISU announcements.

And let's not overlook the fact that the ISU, while it does have money, does not have the amount of money that Tennis Australia has to hire charter flights to bring 1000+ people comprising athletes, support teams and officials in from all around the world, provide testing for them all and isolation facilities for up to 14 days if required (while also covering accommodation and food costs for all attendees for at minimum two weeks in addition to the usual costs, and most likely significantly more given that anyone who has to isolate for 14 days will not be able to train during that period - the AO groups began arriving in Australia several weeks ahead of the AO start date in order to allow for this). Neither does the Swedish Federation, I imagine. While I'm still not reconciled to this tennis tournament going on at all, I will absolutely give Tennis Australia props for prioritising contact tracing and allowing time for players to isolate/quarantine as needed in their logistical planning; I do not trust the ISU to do the same because I don't think it has the resources to.

I also agree that if Worlds goes ahead, the protocols for testing, isolation/quarantine, and involuntary withdrawals need to be published along with all other protocols, in the event announcement. This is a fandom that includes people who try to get Interpol to investigate when their fave doesn't win by as many points as they think he should, for crying out loud. If they don't publish the protocols we'll have people screaming that X skater's positive result before boarding the plane was fake/shedding old virus/a false positive and they were deliberately kept out of the competition by Y country, while Z skater was sabotaged by being held in isolation for two weeks so they couldn't train. The athletes don't need that, the ISU doesn't need it, we don't need it and I'm pretty sure Interpol could do without another wave of nuisance inquiries too!

 

[skategal]

Can you even imagine the conspiracy theories if one of the heavy favourites can’t compete due to a positive test?

 

[aka_gerbil]

Can you even imagine the conspiracy theories if one of the heavy favourites can’t compete due to a positive test?

I was about to post can you imagine how nuts the Fanyus would be if he got to Sweeden and then couldn’t compete.

 

[skategal]

I was about to post can you imagine how nuts the Fanyus would be if he got to Sweeden and then couldn’t compete.

Yep that’s where my mind went too....

 

[starrynight]

Can you even imagine the conspiracy theories if one of the heavy favourites can’t compete due to a positive test?

Oh yes. Particularly if the rules at round it are a secret or hidden in some bundle of forms that were never given to the skaters themselves.

This is a fandom that includes people who try to get Interpol to investigate when their fave doesn't win by as many points as they think he should, for crying out loud.

Indeed. Contract tracing caused numerous withdrawals from US nationals, but because only one dance team was a big name, it didn’t cause much of a ripple. But it will be a big big deal at worlds.

 

[Karen-W]

All the rules, schedules, prize money, penalties, food arrangements, flights, transfers, drug testing, hotel arrangements, meal payments etc for ISU events have always been written into a document and published on the ISU website.

I don’t see why the rules around forced withdrawals/quarantine should be a secret. It would be out of step with the way the ISU has always operated.

Heck, fans have always known precisely how many meals the athletes get paid for.

Well, seeing that any further decisions from the ISU Council regarding Worlds won't be made for another 9 days, why don't we just wait until then to see what sort of protocols, etc are published in their Communication on the matter?

The real problem is that you seem to believe that the general public should be made privy to whatever draft versions or private discussions on these topics, as if any of us have a real need to know. And while there are certainly FSUers who fit into the need to know category, if you were one of them you wouldn't be demanding that this information be public right now, before a final decision about holding the event is made by the ISU Council. I have a hard time believing that the feds and affected skaters aren't being consulted behind the scenes. The rest of us, sitting here in the FSU peanut gallery, are just going to have to sit tight and see what happens on Jan 28th.

 

[overedge]

I was about to post can you imagine how nuts the Fanyus would be if he got to Sweeden and then couldn’t compete.

Especially if Nathan did compete

 

[Karen-W]

Indeed. Contract tracing caused numerous withdrawals from US nationals, but because only one dance team was a big name, it didn’t cause much of a ripple. But it will be a big big deal at worlds.

It did? Contact tracing caused the withdrawal of ONE senior lady, THREE pairs teams that train at the same rink, and ONE dance team. And the dance team only withdrew out of a hyper-abundance of caution and consideration. Their withdrawal did not cause the withdrawal of any of their rink training mates, nor did the withdrawal of the one senior lady. Yes, the pairs withdrawals were a disappointment but they did the right thing, which is exactly what the protocols the USFS had in place were designed to do.

Here is the thing... Hanyu is going to keep training, regardless of whether or not Worlds happens. If, God forbid, he or someone in the TCC bubble had a positive test and it prevented him (or anyone else) from competing at Worlds... That positive test is going to prevent him from training while he and the rest of the TCC quarantine, so what does it matter if he gets to compete or not? Because the Fanyus might go off the deep end is NOT a good reason to cancel Worlds.

 

[starrynight]

No matter what happens it’ll cause drama.

Just look how the tennis players have reacted lol https://www.instagram.com/p/CKNhtaaH9la/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

[MacMadame]

Some parts of the world will be. Not all. Not even most.

According to what criteria? Case counts seem to be going down in most parts of the world right now. And some parts never had a big problem. All of Africa has few cases, and countries like Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand (to name a few) are doing great.

There is no need to have the world vaccinated in order to have a Worlds. If no cases develop out of the recent US Nationals that used ISU protocols, that makes Worlds even more likely.

 

[Sylvia]

Contact tracing caused the withdrawal of ONE senior lady <snip>

Actually, Paige Rydberg was the only U.S. senior skater who tested positive after she arrived in Las Vegas - she shared an update on her Instagram yesterday, explaining how she took c0vid tests on Jan. 11 (positive), 13 (negative) & 15 (negative): https://www.instagram.com/p/CKNTpiRLs6a/

 

[Karen-W]

Actually, Paige Rydberg was the only U.S. senior skater who tested positive after she arrived in Las Vegas - she shared an update on her Instagram yesterday, explaining how she took c0vid tests on Jan. 11 (positive), 13 (negative) & 15 (negative): https://www.instagram.com/p/CKNTpiRLs6a/

Yes. The others withdrew after they were notified they had been in contact with someone who tested positive, and they followed the established protocols by withdrawing before they traveled to Vegas. So far, none of the junior teams have withdrawn after arriving, right?

All in all, while it is still too early to say the bubble worked, I am very hopeful about it, especially as a template for the ISU to use for Worlds.

 

[starrynight]

All in all, while it is still too early to say the bubble worked, I am very hopeful about it, especially as a template for the ISU to use for Worlds.

The USA athletes behaved impeccably and honestly in the running of that event. Great stuff.

But I’m still not going to forget the scenes at Rostelecom. The staging of worlds safely is going to require every athlete and coach from every nation to act honestly and responsibly all the way from home to travel to the event.

 

[tony]

The USA athletes behaved impeccably and honestly in the running of that event. Great stuff.

But I’m still not going to forget the scenes at Rostelecom. The staging of worlds safely is going to require every athlete and coach from every nation to act honestly and responsibly all the way from home to travel to the event.

And that would be sorted in the ISU regulations - which I'm sure will require skaters minimal time outside of their hotel rooms besides for practices. Do you think a Russian coach is going to walk around the arena and breathe on everyone, or something?

I still don't get why you phrased your original post to make it sound like the athletes/people going somehow wouldn't know the rules without a public document and now you have a list of other things that bother you - why didn't you just start with that?

 

[allezfred]

If, God forbid, he or someone in the TCC bubble had a positive test and it prevented him (or anyone else) from competing at Worlds... That positive test is going to prevent him from training while he and the rest of the TCC quarantine, so what does it matter if he gets to compete or not?

Pretty sure Hanyu is not in Toronto now nor has he been since YKW started.

 

[Karen-W]

Pretty sure Hanyu is not in Toronto now nor has he been since YKW started.

I wasn't sure where he has been since YKW began. He didn't compete at NHK but did compete at Japanese Nats so I figured he remained in Toronto as long as possible and would try to return as soon as possible. But, I'm not a Fanyu so I don't track his every movement. ;-)

 

[Cherub721]

.

And that would be sorted in the ISU regulations - which I'm sure will require skaters minimal time outside of their hotel rooms besides for practices. Do you think a Russian coach is going to walk around the arena and breathe on everyone, or something?

I think they will walk around blowing cigarette smoke in peoples' faces.

 

[Lemonade20]

If Worlds do proceed, I’m sure there will be a plan in place to ensure everyone’s safety. We don’t need to know every single detail about that.

 

[Orm Irian]

According to what criteria? Case counts seem to be going down in most parts of the world right now. And some parts never had a big problem. All of Africa has few cases, and countries like Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand (to name a few) are doing great.

There is no need to have the world vaccinated in order to have a Worlds. If no cases develop out of the recent US Nationals that used ISU protocols, that makes Worlds even more likely.

Our vaccination program in Australia won't even start until mid-February at the earliest. Africa may be doing well overall, but South Africa has a very, very, very large number of cases, as a matter of fact, and their vaccination program is moving very slowly. France cannot seem to figure out how to get their vaccination program to gather speed. Germany is also taking longer than they thought they would. It's just come out that Switzerland, which has only just started doing enough to bring their case numbers down from 5,000 per day at last, won't get the majority of their vaccines until June/July. These are all fairly large countries, and with the exception of South Africa, have fairly large skating teams that might get sent to Worlds. And even South Africa has one or two skaters who might become eligible if the TES minimum criteria are revised enough.

And overall case counts are starting to come down at the moment, yes, which is good, but we need to remember that those numbers are a picture of what was happening two weeks ago, not what's going on right now. We also need to remember that within those overall case counts, numbers of variant strain cases (the UK variant, the South Africa variant, the Brazil variant and others) are rising, and to date it seems that these variants are all more communicable - it takes less contact for infection to occur and one infected person is likely to infect more people. At least one of them, the South Africa strain, is also an antibody-escape strain, meaning that people who've been sick recently and still have antibodies may be able to get sick all over again if they come into contact with it. These have been described as having the potential to be come 'a pandem!c within the pandem!c', because the current measures in most countries are designed to protect against the previously dominant strain, not against these more transmissible variants with higher R numbers. For example, a lot of countries are still trying to keep some schools open...and ski slopes, Switzerland...but schools have been shown to be a big driver of b117 (UK variant) spread. If one or more variants become dominant in a country that hasn't yet moved to more stringent protective measures until their vaccination programs do become widespread enough to make an impact, we're likely to see the daily case numbers that are dropping now start to rise again - very fast - and not long after that the death counts rise with them.

This is not purely theoretical, by the way. The UK and South African variants are in community transmission in many European countries already. There are currently 5,000 people in quarantine in Belgium because one woman went on a ski trip to Switzerland and contracted the South African variant there, and then went home and infected others. It's estimated that as of two weeks ago approximately 20% of cases in the Geneva region were the UK variant. Both are established in France and I think Germany as well, and they'll be in plenty of other countries that I don't track so closely too by now.

We all want the situation to be simple, the vaccines to flow like water and the world to go back to how it was, skating competitions and all, but the truth is that it's a lot more complex than you're representing it as, with a lot more moving parts that can go very very wrong already when given the slightest chance to, and it's going to keep on bowling googlies at us for a long time yet. As Norman Swan has been saying since the whole thing kicked off: it's not viruses that cause pandem!cs, it's human behaviour, and by trying to run big international sporting events with as little disruption as possible just because it's what we're used to and want to do (or because it brings in money, thank you Tennis Australia), we are exemplifying the kind of human behaviour that not only causes pandem!cs but has the potential to keep them going on for longer than they otherwise might.

 

[MacMadame]

Our vaccination program in Australia won't even start until mid-February at the earliest.

Again, there is no requirement that everyone be vaccinated to have a safe event.