Anton Sikharulidze: “We look to the ISU with great hope, as they must decide to lift any disqualifications from Russian athletes. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll consider filing a lawsuit in international court.”

Russian Figure Skating Federation President Anton Sikharulidze expects the ISU to make a decision on allowing Russian juniors to compete internationally by this spring or early summer.

original source: TASS / TASS / TASS

President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) Anton Sikharulidze spoke about when Russian juniors might be allowed to participate in international competitions. Here’s a translation of his comment.

“As for dates, it’s not right to give people false hope with specific dates – they often get postponed or shifted – but I think the ISU will definitely make a decision regarding our juniors this spring or by early summer. I don’t see any contradictions at all, and I don’t see any for the seniors either.

But right now, the situation is such that we should be able to start competing internationally soon. I hope our dialogue with them isn’t just empty words. This is an international federation, and all its leadership looks with admiration at how we have managed to endure and develop,” Sikharulidze said.

“We managed to become the only winter federation that created conditions for our athletes to participate in the Winter Olympics through dialogue. We didn’t go to court – only dialogue and diplomacy. But we understand that time is passing, and we look to the ISU with great hope, as they must decide to lift any disqualifications from our athletes. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll consider filing a lawsuit in international court,” added the FFKKR president.

“The ISU Congress is coming up – it’s an important congress where the ISU president and the ISU Council, the main governing body, will be elected. There is also ongoing discussion that changes to figure skating rules may be announced there. The rules could undergo significant changes, making it a different kind of figure skating. Spectators may not notice the changes as clearly, but for athletes, coaches, and specialists, the changes are significant.

The Council will make the decisions on changes. We have submitted our proposals and did everything on time. We are in dialogue with our colleagues. We will definitely attend and will propose our Russian representatives for the technical committees. The situation is not very favorable, but we are working on it. We may see results.

The logic behind the rule changes and the behavior of the judges suggests that world figure skating is moving toward a balance between difficulty and components. How many jumps are there in a program? Seven. We are having this dialogue. No decisions on rule changes have been made yet. And it’s not just us – other federations have also submitted proposals, and they are similar to ours,” Sikharulidze said.

Related topics: Anton Sikharulidze, ISU