A matter of priorities

Posted on February 28, 2021 by Martina Frammartino

The World Championship of figure skating is scheduled in Sweden from March,22 to March, 28. Now Sweden is seriously affected by COVID-19. The situation is worsening.

https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/448296/sweden-authorities-to-tighten-domestic-covid-19-restrictions-from-march-1-update-15

The protocol done by ISU is insufficient in many respect. This is a thread that explain his many issues.

At the competition there will be skater from all the World. Among them, skaters (and coaches, and other people) who come from nation in which the safety measures are scarce. Look at the photos in this article:

コーチが発熱って危険すぎよ！ロシアはなぜ過去の教訓を学ばないのか？

And…

Someone collected the results of the COVID policy in Russia. Remember that after the Rostelecom Cup they did the banquet, obviously without masks. The banquet (with or without masks) were expressly forbidden by the ISU. The Russian federation did what wanted, and the ISU hadn’t sanctioned them. If a federation can break a ISU rule without consequences, how important are ISU’s rules? Or this is true only for the strongest federations? The ISU vice president for figure skating is the Russian Alexander Lakernik, but this isn’t important, right?

Jan Dijkema, the president of ISU, has said that the Rostelecom Cup was a domestic event, and that they haven’t further information. This after we saw how a lot of people wear the masks during the competition, and after we saw several photos posted on twitter by the skaters.

https://twitter.com/PoohPalooza/status/1366945002748743681

He has new information now? Because we didn’t heard about any sanction against the Russian federation. And if a competition is recognised by the ISU, the ISU must (not should, must) be sure that the competition is safe for all the participants.

For information…

https://twitter.com/valsetriiste/status/1363912190307094531

The skaters came from all the World, and some of them may have participated to a competition held with preventive measures insufficient:

A lot of people are worried and are talking about the problem:

Someone said that the skaters are young, and that young people don’t get the virus, or at least get it in a mild form. No, this isn’t true. Young people get the virus less easily, but they can get it, and even if they heal, there can be serious consequences. And most of their coaches aren’t young people. This is a list of athletes that had COVID:

https://www.olympedia.org/lists/221/manual.

The list is widely incomplete. Even without think seriously about them, to my mind came the names of Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, Alena Kostornaia, Eva-Lotta Kiibus, Evgenia Medvedeva, Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, Daniel Grassl, Donovan Carrillo and Tom Zakraisek (the article talk about one of his student, Paige Rydberg, but if I remember correctly even Tom Zakrajsek tested positive, and in this situation his students were regularly at the National Championship without a quarantine, with the risk to spread further the virus).

I’ve read several times comments saying that none is forcing the skaters to go to the competition, if they don’t want to do it. It’s an ingenuity in the best cases, a lie in the worst. The World Championship is used to determine how many spots every nation will have at the next Olympic Games. Obviously the national federations want the spots, obviously the skaters want the possibility to go at the Olympic Games.

Think to the Russia. Among the Ladies, even with three spots, the maximum possible, some strong skater, that could win an Olympic medal, can’t go to the Olympics because in the national championship she will end after some skater that, in another day, she is able to overcome. For Russia three spot in the Ladies competition are few, the Russian skaters can’t skip the World Championship and to have only a spot at the Olympic Games. And also in the other disciplines, the Russian skaters need (and deserves) more than one spot. And how about China in Pairs or United States in Ice Dance and Men, and Japan in Men and Ladies? For Italy, I’d like to see especially two men.

But… really the results of the World Championship is the only way to determine the spots for every nation? Its’ not possible, as this time the whole World is in an emergency situation, to determine the spots in a different way?

This is a hypothesis done by Lys. It’s a fair way for all the skaters, but other hypothesis can be done.

The ISU has had months to decide other way to assign the Olympic spots. An other way can be established even now. It’s not necessary to force the skaters to go to a risky competition. They are forced, independently from what anyone can say. And if they will become ill… The ISU has protected himself imposing all the people present to the competition to sign a waiver to pursue penally the ISU. In case the link will be broken, I put here a screenshot. This is for the journalists, but there’s one also for the skaters.

But the ISU shouldn’t protect the skaters? This is in contrast with the IOC Code of Ethics, that explicitly ask to all the parts involved

Ensuring the participants’ conditions of safety, well-being and medical care favourable to their physical and mental equilibrium.

I hope that none become ill, but if the best skaters should get sick, we’re really sure that they will be healthy in time to train well for the Olympic Games? We’re really sure that they will be capable to continue to skate?

Edit: I’ve added several things after the first publication of this post. I don’t have explained what I’ve added because for me it wasn’t necessary, the additions explained better some aspect of the situation but did not added anything new. Now I add a new piece of information, and for me it’s important to point this out.

The ISU had planned their usual congress for may. May, not March. They have just deleted it because it’s not sure. For people that, not having to skate, can wear the mask all the time. For people that can stay at several meters of distance the ones from the others, when the skaters are very close, for example, just before entering the rink. For people that don’t risk a collision with someone other during the practice or the warm up, when none is wearing the mask, they all are sweating and there can be wounds that could bleed. This is the ISU communication:

The World Championship will be held in Sweden, the ISU congress were scheduled in Thailand. The two nations are in really different situation about the spread of the virus.

As Massimiliano Ambesi has pointed, at the World Championship there will be 194 skaters, a very big number, specially for an indoor event.

And, as a research made at Yale has pointed, indoor ice rinks increase the risk in transmission of COVID-19.

https://publichealth.yale.edu/research_practice/interdepartmental/covid/schools/sports/.

The World Championship isn’t really necessary, it should be stopped or, at least, the Olympic spots must not be linked to the results of this competition, forcing the skaters to go there, if they want to compete or not. The ISU thinks about protecting itself, and at the same time play with the lives of the skaters.

The bare minimum would be to increase the health measures. I know, to increase the health misure is expensive, and the ISU prefer to spend money in the things in which most care. The health of skaters, coaches, judges, journalists and so on? No, the official song and a new podcast:

If we think that the ISU has reached the bottom, we forgot that there are shovels and it is always possible to start digging.

An important petition on the matter:

DEMAND EFFECTIVE COVID PROTOCOLS FROM ISU FOR 2021 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS #STOCKHOLM2021

Also, we can report the matter to IOC:

If some skater want to talk anonymously with a journalist:

Thanks to all the people who do wonderful thread or find interesting article and post them on Twitter.

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