Anton Sikharulidze: “We haven’t lost any of the leaders, no one has run to other federations. Diana Davis? They have a very unique situation, everything related to her life is not connected with Russia.”
Translation of Anton Sikharulidze’s comments about Russian skaters switching their sports citizenship.
original source: Sport-Express
The acting head of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia, Anton Sikharulidze commented on the situation in Russian figure skating regarding switching sports citizenship. Here’s a translation of his comments.
“As you understand, for many years the entire figure skating training system has been aimed at creating reserves and national teams for participation in international competitions so that the athletes could achieve high results.
Since 2022, we have not participated in international competitions. We sat down and started thinking about how to provide our dear figure skaters with enough competitions that would be interesting. This is where the idea of creating the Russian Grand Prix system came from, as well as supplementing it with junior stages.
We have developed a fairly dense calendar for the athletes. But we understood that this was not enough to make our athletes’ lives as bright as before.
The suspension prompted us to actively think about what we often talked about but never got around to: ‘Sports competitions are cool, but there are many other formats.’
We have our own team competition within the country now. We created a jumping championships, and it has been going very well. This is a completely new format. As soon as we held the first championship, the ISU council gathered and talked about how great it would be to hold such competitions.
Another format is the show program competition. This is a very interesting topic, it was my dream. A competition between current athletes and champions of the past. The event went great, with many positive reviews! In my opinion, with such interesting competitions, we have managed to maintain the interest of our main athletes.
We have not lost any of the leaders, no one has run to other federations. Life in figure skating is bubbling, which pleases me.”
Anton Sikharulidze commented on Russian figure skaters switching to other teams.
“If we talk about members of national teams, there’s one ice dance team, the daughter of Eteri Tutberidze (Diana Davis). But they have a very unique situation.
Firstly, she was not born in Russia. Secondly, she has a complicated hearing situation, and the necessary devices for her are produced only in one country in the world. The situation is specific.
When they approached us, we decided to accommodate them. Everything related to her life is not connected with Russia; she didn’t live here.
There were other transfers, but they are not leaders. Several coaches came to me with their students, trying to discuss the transfer issue. I honestly said that I would vote against it.
There were situations where parents moved to work with their children. Of course, we let them go. My position on citizens trying to find a place is already formed.”
Anton Sikharulidze also spoke about interaction with the International Skating Union (ISU).
“We have contacts with the ISU. But at the request of colleagues, we do not discuss the topic of when Russian athletes will return to international competitions.
They are interested in how we are developing the Grand Prix system, how we view the development of judging.
We love figure skating; when the international organization approaches us, we gladly cooperate. It’s about the athletes, about the sport. They look from the outside, turn to us for help in developing figure skating.
Is it hypocrisy on their part? Let them deal with their position themselves. I’m not inclined to say that everything is bad there. There are guys who skate great.
But to say that they have developed in such a way that we need to catch up is not right. In many aspects, we are ahead of everyone.
We wouldn’t want world figure skating to decline without our participation; we do not wish them harm. Let’s compete together as soon as possible!”
Related topics: Anton Sikharulidze
This is a diplomatic and articulate response from Sikharuldidze, which should, of course, be expected from his position as acting head of the Russia FSF.
I’d like to add that I adore him, even if he sometimes failed to lay down a clean program when competing. And I still treasure how beautifully Berezhnaya jumped. All in all, they were an exquisite pair who translated Moskvina’s “style” like none of her other skaters, in my opinion.