Update: ISU Congress postponed to 2021, decision upcoming on rescheduling 2020 figure skating worlds (very likely, "no”), plus my exclusive info on bigger future worlds
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The window for rescheduling the 2020 worlds will likely close soon with final ISU decision to cancel.
There has been a decision on one major International Skating Union event cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic.
That will be followed soon by a decision on another – even if the fate of the latter, the 2020 World Figure Skating Championships, seems pretty much a foregone conclusion already.
The ISU asked its members to vote on the future of the organization’s biennial policy-making Congress, which had been scheduled for this June 8-12 in Phuket, Thailand. The ballot offered three choices: 1) postponement until June 2021; 2) definite cancellation; 3) abstention. The voting ended Monday, and the winner was having a Congress in 2021, according to a person informed about the outcome.
With that decision made, the ISU Council will meet by teleconference to discuss the result and matters related to the 2020 worlds, the 2020-21 season and seasons after that.
No 2020 worlds and more skaters at future worlds are involved.
There is, sadly, an element of futility in making any plans about events that bring people together. But planning for the future can also bring a needed bit of optimism in these socially distant times.
When the 2020 figure skating worlds were cancelled March 11, a week before they were to begin, both the Montreal organizers and the ISU left open the possibility of rescheduling the event later this year, but not before October.
Sources with knowledge of the situation have told me there now is less than a 10 percent chance the ISU would even consider trying to reschedule, for a number of reasons.
The first is the continued uncertainty over when sports events of any size and type will be able to resume. That could make going through the preparation process for a rescheduled worlds a waste of time, energy and money.
The second is trying to avoid having athletes confused and / or clinging to a faint hope at an already unsettling moment when few can train at all, and many would wonder which season they should be training for – the end of the last or the beginning of the next. They can expect a decision by the middle of April, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
The third is timing. The 2020-21 Grand Prix figure skating series is scheduled to begin Oct. 23-25 at Skate America in Las Vegas, and the schedule after that has few gaps before the 2021 worlds, scheduled for March 22-28 In Stockholm.
That presumes, of course, that there will be a 2020-21 figure skating season. Until a coronavirus vaccine is available, few may want to take the risk of spreading the pandemic further and delaying its being brought under control.
Japanese and International Olympic Committee officials kept pressing forward with their desire to have the 2020 Olympics as scheduled, citing a relatively low number of coronavirus cases in Japan. After March 24, when the Tokyo Summer Games were postponed until 2021, the number of reported cases has tripled, from 1,193 to 3,906,, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Tuesday declared a month-long state of emergency in Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures, That raises the unconscionable possibility of case numbers having been suppressed for the sake of the Olympics.
The sentiment that favored the 2020 ISU Congress being postponed (likely to to June, 2021, with Thailand being given priority if it still wants to host) was based on a desire to take action on many issues before the 2022 Winter Olympics.
There are proposals that were to go before the Congress this June that, if passed, were to be implemented in the 2022-23 season. The ISU has traditionally avoided having changes take effect during the same four-year Winter Olympic cycle as the Congress that approved them, and the next regularly scheduled Congress would not be until after the 2022 Winter Olympics.
I can exclusively report that one such proposal, from the ISU Council, involves substantial expansion of the fields for the figure skating worlds. If it had been approved in June, it was to take effect for the 2023 worlds.
The rationale behind expansion is two-fold. One, the ISU wants to spread figure skating to more countries, many of which get nearly all their financial support for sports from their government. Ergo, two - having a country represented at worlds provides evidence to the government that the investment has produced results.
If the expansion proposal passes, it would involve restoration of a qualifying round, possibly some easing of the technical score minimums currently in place for basic entry and establishing a method for direct entry to the short program.
Here are some details:
*At the 2020 worlds, there were to have been the following number of entries to the short program (number of countries in parentheses):
Women’s singles, 36 (29); men’s singles, 31 (25); pairs, 24 (15); dance, 34 (26). That would have been trimmed to top 24 for the singles free skates and 20 for the free skates in couples’ events.
*Under the new proposal, the total number of entries would be 54 in singles, 32 in pairs and 40 in dance.
*The increase would not provide more entries for established nations, and about half the skaters would compete in a qualifying round to earn a spot in the short program.
*That was the case for singles and dance in 2011 and 2012, before the qualifying round was eliminated for a second time. During those years, 12 of the 30 skaters in the singles short programs and 10 of the 25 couples in the short dance came from the qualifying (called preliminary round in 2011 and 2012.)
*In this new proposal, there would be 24 direct entries to a 36-skater short program field in singles, 16 of 24 in pairs and 20 of 30 in dance. The remainder would come from order of finish in the qualifying round.
*The same process by which nations now qualify for more than one entry in each discipline at the subsequent year’s worlds would apply for direct entries, with the remaining places allocated according to where each country’s top skater finished at that worlds. If the multiple entry numbers exceeded the number of direct places, more direct entries would be added.
The free skate fields would be the same size as they are now: 24 in singles, 16 in pairs, 20 in dance.
*The short and free programs would be called the “championship round.”
ISU officials have run the expansion idea by the major TV networks that televise the worlds, and it did not provoke resistance, a source said.
Voting on such proposals in time for them to take effect in 2023 is the reason for having a postponed Congress in 2021. The idea of doing it virtually has so far not been seriously considered because of the usual length of the proceedings, the number of people involved in discussions, the different time zones in play and concerns that internet reception may not be 100 percent reliable.
What the head of USA Biathlon told me last week when asked if the Summer Olympics cannot take place as rescheduled in 2021 would also apply if a real ISU Congress could not take place in 2021. It will, he said, mean we have much, much bigger issues.
