“Medvedeva’s boyfriend wants to escape Russia and is preparing to represent a new country as early as next season.” Geinish/Chigirev plan to switch to Uzbekistan
Ekaterina Geinish and Dmitri Chigirev plan to switch to represent Uzbekistan.
original source: Sport24 dd 22d May 2024 by Aleksandra Milukova
Russian pair skater Ekaterina Geinish / Dmitri Chigirev are in the process of changing sports citizinship and plan to represent Uzbekistan. Here’s a translation of the recent article about the potential transfer posted on Sport24.
“The ongoing suspension of Russian athletes and the uncertainty about returning to a normal reality leads to an inevitable surge in cases of changing sports citizenship. Particularly when the Olympic Games in Milan are less than two years away, and a figure skater’s career is generally short and unpredictable. The latest loss is the sports pair Ekaterina Geinish and Dmitri Chigirev, who intend to perform under the flag of Uzbekistan from now on.
Geinish/Chigirev teamed up at the end of the 2021/22 season and have since been skating in Nina Moser’s group. Geinish/Chigirev has a diverse and tactically advantageous set of elements that can help them compete with technically lagging figure skaters on the world stage.
Another question is why the skaters chose the Uzbekistan team in particular. Among the obvious advantages can be distinguished perhaps only the absence of any competition. After the retirment of Misha Ge in 2018, no athlete in all four disciplines represented Uzbekistan at major international competitions (Four Continents Championship or World Championship). Moreover, due to a “lack of personnel”, the national championship is not organized every year, but from time to time, when there is someone to compete. For the record: the last championship of Uzbekistan in figure skating took place in May 2022.
Will Geinish/Chigirev be able to “jump on the last car” and win the ticket to Milan-2026? Not everything is so easy. The cornerstone is the procedure for obtaining a new sports passport. First of all, the receiving party must send a request to the releasing federation with an invitation for the skaters. In the case of Geinish/Chigirev, an anonymous source, familiar with the situation, confirmed to TASS that the athletes allegedly already informed FFKKR about their desire to perform for the Uzbekistan team in the 2024/25 season and, therefore, submitted documents for the move. But as is usually the case in Russian figure skating, a couple of hours later, the main coach of the Russian national team, Elena Chaykovskaya, denied the fact of the transition entirely.
It’s curious that throughout the 2023/24 season Geinish/Chigirev performed, quite successfully, exclusively at small tournaments, did not claim for the Grand Prix stages, and even did not try to qualify for the Russian Nationals or the Spartakiad. The reason is that participation in the national championship and even more so passing into the team would have complicated the transfer, especially taking into account that right to veto from FFKKR. It seems that the skaters started to build plans about their career in an alternative team a while ago. Maybe that’s why even while on vacation with his girlfriend Evgenia Medvedeva, Chigirev consistently trained, inspired by thoughts about an early start at international competitions.
On the part of the Uzbekistan federation, it also does not make sense to expect particular interest in the transfer of Geinish/Chigirev. Although in the future, the guys can fight for the Four Continents Championship medals, for such a small figure skating power, maintaining athletes, even considering their victories, will bring more losses than benefits – coaches, training camps, transfers to competitions, fees to the ISU. It’s important that, most likely, both athletes do not currently have Uzbekistan passports.
Geinish and Chigirev can claim to obtain the citizenship of Uzbekistan only in the general order of naturalization (60 months of living in the country without access to usual ice infrastructure) or in an individual order by decision of the president himself (if the basis meets state interests). But it’s hard to believe now that the head of Uzbekistan sees in the former Russians the potential for becoming a figure skating power.
Tatyana Tarasova reacted to the news of the transfer of Geinish/Chigirev in her usual negative manner: “They want to move – then let them move to Uzbekistan or any other team. They can go anywhere! This is no loss for us. We don’t perform at international competitions – that’s where the problem is. Our leading athletes stay with us, and the tenth places can go wherever they want.”
Perhaps in a way she is right: the guys didn’t particularly shine against other Russian pairs. But it is also clear that the outflow of athletes from Russia due to the uncertain terms of the suspension is becoming a negative trend, gradually gaining momentum. The scariest part of this is that constantly restraining it with the Federation’s right to veto, unfortunately, will not work.”
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Ed. The original headline of the article in Russian has been preserved.
Related topics: Dmitri Chigirev, Ekaterina Geinish, Evgenia Medvedeva, Tatiana Tarasova
I have reacted to the article title, and it was good the Ed. was included;) In this case, there are some downsides for the boy being Medvedeva’s boyfriend – media starts writing about you. Best of luck to the guys, even I’ve never seen them perform.