Note: This episode was recorded before the cancellation of Skate Canada International was announced.
This episode has been transcribed, edited and condensed for clarity by Evie (@doubleflutz), Tilda (@tequilda) and Niamh (@rivrdance).
Yogeeta: You're In The Loop - we're here to discuss the ups, downs, and sideways of the sport of figure skating, and maybe give you +5 GOE along the way. Let’s introduce this week's hosts.
Lae: Hi, I'm Lae, I've been hibernating from figure skating for probably the last... I don't even know how many months. You can find me on Twitter @axelsandwich.
Yogeeta: Hi, I'm Yogeeta, and I'm popping out of my K-Pop hole to talk about what on earth is going on in figure skating in this current pandemic time. You can find me on Twitter @liliorum. What on earth is going on?
Lae: One of the weirdest offseasons we've ever experienced and that, obviously, is due to COVID but also just due to the way that the figure skating world has gone about addressing it - which is to say, not at all but also kind of. I think the main segment of this episode is probably going to be us talking extensively about the 20/21 [Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series]. In other words, why we think, at least, that based on everything we have been seeing so far, why it should be canceled. And I think before we say all of that, first off, it's really important to caveat that we, obviously, are aware that there is an entire economy that revolves around figure skating as a sport. So skaters participating in the sport have already lost a lot of income through no ice shows and a lot of their side income streams such as coaching have obviously been impacted by COVID. But we know that with elite skaters, they can't just stop training and wait out this pandemic and, in accordance with that, there are a lot of training costs and expenses that have to happen in order for that to happen. So that's definitely a financial incentive to continue to compete and keep practicing the sport. We know that there are livelihoods of the federation and ISU officials, TV and media broadcasters, advertisers, and sponsors - all of these people and jobs revolve around keeping the sport going. So it's totally understandable to try as much as possible to keep competitions going and to basically keep skating alive, even within these COVID times.
Yogeeta: Moreover, the Grand Prix Series isn't just a now issue. We also have to think about the future of skating. The Grand Prix Final, which has been postponed, was originally meant to be a test venue for the Beijing 2022 Olympics, which is still currently up in the air as to whether or not that event will even be held. Also, we know that the Junior Grand Prix has been canceled, but this makes it more difficult for Junior skaters to get the experience that they need - especially Junior skaters who were hoping to instead debut [as Seniors] this year in order to avoid debuting in an Olympic season, so they can get the Senior experience and make a case for themselves to actually compete in the Olympics next season, instead of trying to make that argument while debuting as a Senior.
Lae: So there's definitely a lot of reasons to feel that this season happening is a very important one but I think, on balance of all the factors for and against having the season going ahead, we do really question the ethics of continuing to push ahead with the GP, as the ISU have indicated that they're doing. So in order to tackle and break down this issue, the first thing to establish is what are the risks of COVID for athletes because, obviously, all of these measures are being put into place to try and minimize the risks of athletes catching the virus and also passing it on to people around them. I think the first element to really address is the long-term damage that COVID poses for athletes. Commonly, there was the initial understanding that COVID was relatively low-risk for healthy, young individuals - but it is really important to know that we really have no idea whether that is completely true, especially because the virus is still rampant and likely mutating as it goes through so many people and infections. What we have noticed though is a worrying trend and a worrying outcome for a certain subset of people who have had COVID and nonetheless recovered. For example, we've had COVID long haulers, which is a growing community of people who have suffered from the virus but have continued to suffer lingering symptoms months after technically recovering.
Lae: And we know that some of the symptoms that have been reported are of particular risk to athletes. So things like brain fog, continued heart and lung problems or diminished lung capacity, fever, exhaustion - all of these things are very dangerous for people who make the health of their bodies and the ability for their bodies to do these high-risk maneuvers their entire career. We also know in studies, in Utah, for example, that 15% of college athletes with COVID showed signs of heart inflammation even after they recovered. On the flip side, we have had some professors, like Kentaro Iwata from Kobe University, who have downplayed the concerns with their athletes, saying that, in his study, the symptoms tended to be mild and haven't significantly affected performance. But I think also it's important to note that athletes aren't the only ones affected by COVID. We have athletes coaches, who they regularly interact with - many of whom are elderly. We have volunteers, officials, audience members, and the local community - all of whom have to gather and closely interact in order to make Grand Prix Series competitions happen. So we definitely know that there are a lot broader implications for an athlete catching COVID than simply the process of them recovering from it and so I think in sport, especially, it should really be taken seriously as a risk - not only to themselves and their long term career prospects but also to everyone who is supporting and interacting with them in the process of carrying out a competition. And also a side note, the psychological effects of competing within this atmosphere of tension, uncertainty, and fear in the general COVID times is really something that shouldn't be overlooked. I think we can all probably attest to the emotional and mental impacts of even living in COVID times, so doubly so, I think, for athletes.
Yogeeta: So, as we all know, the Grand Prix Series is currently positioned to go ahead and we have had assignments released - with a lot of withdrawals since then. These Grand Prix Series events are basically glorified Nationals, the majority of the competitors there are from their home nation, notwithstanding [Internationaux de France], which does have competitors from across Europe. These competitions do not count towards World Standings, but it's currently unclear whether or not the scores from these competitions will count towards Personal or Seasons Bests. The officials and judges for these competitions will also be from the host countries, which really gives an indicator that we will probably see a lot of score inflation because of this. They've also divided the events here into "qualified" and "unqualified" categories, and the prize money is halved for events that don't actually have at least one full group of skaters with at least three skaters/teams in the top 24 [19/20] Seasons Bests or World Standings list. So, I'm sorry, NHK Ice Dance field. Also, the Grand Prix Final is postponed which, honestly, even if it wasn't postponed, I'd be very confused about how it would actually happen. I understand the reason why it was postponed, however, given that this is not a standard Grand Prix Series, we don't have skaters competing in multiple events. It is very unclear to me if a Grand Prix Final were to happen, how the ISU would properly determine which skaters would actually make it there.
Lae: Absolutely, and I think it's also pretty telling that in their whole communications around the Grand Prix Series still happening that they have no guidelines for how these qualifications will happen. It seems to be a "We'll wait and see," which is never very promising. The second element that we want to discuss is also the logistics of [the Grand Prix]. So I think when the ISU first announced that the Grand Prix Series was likely to go ahead as usual, the primary confusion was around how on earth international skaters or people traveling into those venues are going to realistically compete,
Lae: Because many countries still require a 14-day quarantine with no access to training or ice. And I think since the assignments have come out it definitely does seem like the differences between the qualified and unqualified competitions and the prize money involved and requirements may have incentivized the federations requesting assignments be more international than they really ought to be. So logistically we know that a lot of teams don't train in the countries that they represent. Logistically, I think we can see this especially in the Ice Dancers who are based in the Ice Academy of Montreal in Canada. So we know that a lot of the world's top Ice Dance teams all train together there. Therefore, it would probably have made sense from a safety, logistic, and workability perspective to really have all of those teams competing at Skate Canada, because it's in Canada and it's presumably a lot easier to travel internally within a country than to fly out. But we have seen teams like [Gabriella] Papadakis and [Guillaume] Cizeron being assigned to IDF, we've seen [Kaitlin] Hawayek and [Jean Luc] Baker, and [Madison] Hubbell and [Zachary] Donohue all assigned to Skate America. So it does really speak to the fact that there are vested interests in having these athletes compete in key events in their home countries. But conversely, that really does increase the risk so much for these athletes who now have to travel internationally. I'm still struggling with thinking about how Papadakis and Cizeron are going to go to France and presumably isolate for a period of time in their hotel rooms without any access to training and facilities, and then be expected to compete in a Grand Prix series.
Yogeeta: It's extremely mind-boggling and it's impractical. Honestly, as you said, some of these assignments clearly don't make sense. In addition to Papadakis and Cizeron, Ekaterina Kurakova, who is currently in Poland was assigned to Skate Canada. She has withdrawn because she obviously could not get to Skate Canada from Poland. Jun Hwan Cha of South Korea, who usually trains in Canada but is also currently in South Korea, was assigned to Skate Canada.
Lae: And presumably the Korean federation just lost the sheet of paper containing all their Ladies, because we have not seen any South Korean Ladies at all on the Grand Prix assignments and we know that they are very competitive based on last years results. So a giant question mark there?
Yogeeta: I assume that we will probably see Jun Hwan also withdraw in the upcoming weeks, if Skate Canada even happens.
Lae: I think, importantly, I don't believe there's a way for someone to switch their Grand Prix assignments, right?
Yogeeta: I don't think so. Obviously, it's very unclear how the assignments happened. It seems to me that the federations were the ones who probably made the assignments while also probably looking, in the case of Jun Hwan and Ekaterina, that they trained in Canada, so clearly they can attend Skate Canada, right? Wasn't it Kao Miura who found out that he was assigned to NHK via the assignment release?
Lae: I don't know if he knew that he was expected to debut as a Senior or even compete in the Grand Prix at all based on his confused Instagram story caption. I think it's just concerning that if there's no way to switch Grand Prix assignments, you're just straight-up depriving someone of a Grand Prix competition at all based on a badly considered or non up to date assignment. Katya withdrawing from Skate Canada, that was her only event. I assume if it would've been realistic for her to make it to IDF, maybe she would've had a chance to compete in the Grand Prix, but now she is just straight up without a competition.
Yogeeta: From a standpoint of “Yes, we want the skaters to get experience,” this is definitely a bigger issue for skaters from smaller federations that aren't still having domestic competitions, like Katya. The South Korean ladies might not have gotten a Grand Prix assignment, but there are plenty of South Korean competitions currently happening domestically, so they will still get experience there. But it's still very confusing to me how these assignments were decided.
Moving on, we can look to China as being a model Grand Prix event, but I don't know if I'd even call the Cup of China a Grand Prix event. It is an extremely centralized, exclusively domestic field of people who only train in China - but there's only one lady currently assigned to their Ladies event. But we also know that China has, over the past few months, shown excellent control of COVID and they have had numerous other events occur in China, in entertainment and in sports - some even with audiences - with minimal reported issues. “Reported” being the keyword here. If you contrast that with, say, the US, or France, or the Canadian events in regions that are currently spiking with cases, and obviously the assignments for these require some sort of, if not international, still large domestic travel from one side of the country to the other, to get there. Which might not even be really ideal. Actually, speaking of Skate Canada, the Ottawa government, as of October 9th, has announced that they are adding new indoor restrictions for the next 28 days and these restrictions actually include prohibiting indoors sporting events. So given that Skate Canada is supposed to happen within 28 days, is Skate Canada actually happening? [Update: Skate Canada International was canceled on October 15th]
Lae: It's a very good question and I think it brings us to the big elephant in the room, which is that even at the time of recording this podcast, we have had spiking COVID cases literally by the week, especially in many of these key GP locations. Other than the Ottawa governments recent 28 day ban, we've had France's COVID cases at a record high of basically 18,000 per day. We also know that as of October 9th, Russia broke its record for new daily infections in COVID, and obviously the cases in the US are not dying down. I think the last time I checked we had about 46 000 new cases every day. So that's definitely 4 out of 6 GP events in huge, huge doubt. Even just from a country-wide perspective. On the flip side, we also have had Japan considering reopening borders in October, but not to tourists. So it seems as though COVID might be slightly more under control there, but again, there are still very heavy restrictions around entry requirements and how people can travel internally within the country. And lastly, we've also had China who probably has it the most under control, I think they’ve had under 100 cases for a bit but as we mentioned previously, China is still very much inaccessible to foreign visitors. Again, just huge huge questions at the moment and it doesn't look as though things are going to get better in a rush, which does put a lot of pressure on skaters who have to, at least at the moment, prepare to travel internationally without really knowing whether they'll even be able to have the event waiting for them on the other side.
Yogeeta: I think, of all the events in the Grand Prix series, I'm probably most concerned about IDF, because that will be the most international event of all of these events. Given France's increasing COVID cases, given that skaters will probably be coming from all around Europe, you have a lot of factors that the officials at this event will need to take into account to make sure that, at the very least for IDF, it will hopefully go through safely and I don't know if they're prepared for that.
Lae: And I think, speaking of safety standards, we definitely have seen the ISU guidelines being framed more as suggestions rather than mandatory steps to follow. And I think the key issue that we're seeing is the lack of uniformity in the safety guidelines around holding competitions and how they're being enforced. We've really already seen things slip through the cracks, just in the Russian test skates that happened less than a month ago. We had Sofia Samodurova competing with a fever during her Short Program and had to withdraw from the Free Skate. At least from the livestream of the Russian test skates, we saw very few volunteers and officials, or coaches, wearing masks or social distancing. Again, it's just an indication of the differences in the level of seriousness and compliance with the safety measures between competitions. As far as I know, there doesn't seem to be any repercussions for competing with a fever during COVID. It just seems very risky to me, to allow skaters to go ahead with these sorts of practices without any consequences, because that is a significant risk that she was taking, and that was being allowed by her team for her to take during these extraordinary times.
We also know several skaters who have actually gotten COVID. We know the Russian Pairs team, Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov. Morozov does have COVID, but I believe has recovered because there was footage of them practicing again. Galliamov, in the [Anastasia] Mishina/[Aleksandr] Galliamov team also tested positive for COVID recently and had to withdraw. We also know Dmitri Rylov posted on Instagram that his mother has progressive COVID pneumonia and is currently in the hospital. I think it really illuminates that the risk isn't just being carried by the athletes but by everyone that they will be going home to, and that they will interact with before and after the competition. It really highlights that this isn't just an athlete only issue and that should really be taken into account in the safety guidelines as well.
Yogeeta: So, for Skate America and Skate Canada International - currently they are planning to take place without an audience. For Skate America they are going to be following the requirements set by the state of Nevada, a very closed-system event. So per these guidelines, personnel should treat this closed system basically like a large-scale quarantine. So, in this case, for everyone who is attending Skate America (all of the volunteers, all of the staff, all of the coaches, all of the skaters), once they enter the Orleans, they will ideally not leave the Orleans until the competition is over. Skate America has also set out a set of guidelines that everyone attending Skate America will have to follow. So, for 14 days before arrival, all persons will be required to start daily health screening. 7 days from arrival, they have been requested to reduce public interactions to lower the risk of being exposed. And then once they have arrived, they are going to verify on their “Healthy Roster App,” which is the app they are using to do the daily health screenings, that they have a green screen. They will get their temperature checked, and they will get a COVID test that will be administered by the University of Las Vegas Medicine, and all persons that get tested will be required to quarantine in their hotel room until they get a negative test result. Afterwards, they are required to have daily temperature checks or, depending on their location, they may be required to have a temperature check in and out of various locations within the Orleans campus. If they do have a fever over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, they will be tested for COVID again. If a person receives a positive test, then they will be asked to take another test - they want to rule out a false positive, and if they do get a second positive test, then they will be required to quarantine for 14 days and per the rest of the state of Nevada requirements.
Lae: Considering all of that time and, presumably, when they are quarantined in the hotel room, they will not have access to training, they will not be able to carry out their usual activities...
Yogeeta: Yeah, everyone is required to have arrived before this event the Monday before it starts. Typically you would see this event start on a Wednesday with practices, and then the actual competition starting on Thursday. So they are ideally giving everyone attending 24 to 48 hours time for quarantining, but still, as Lae mentioned, that is time that they are just going to be in a hotel room, unable to train or do much exercise - outside of what yoga they can do in their hotel room.
Lae: I mean, to Skate America's credit, I think that is probably the best they can do in terms of the thoroughness and extensiveness of these protective measures. But I think it really illuminates how little in terms of funding and protective measures the ISU and figure skating as a general sport has to work with. Especially when you contrast to, for example, the NBA’s current bubble that they're currently working, which apparently cost $170 million dollars to create and run. But I think that it tells you that the investment would be justified considering the amount of revenue they're taking in for broadcasting these competitions in the NBA. But just to give you a sense of how different or how heightened the bubble is for the NBA, they have confined all their players in a completely isolated geographic area. They have to quarantine for 14 days and take continual tests in order to even get into the bubble and as soon as you leave the bubble you have to isolated for 10 days after. So unlike the GP series, where certain numbers of skaters are being thrown about in various different locations, everyone's being centralized in this one area where they'll have daily COVID tests of players and staff, all food is being prepared in the bubble, no family or friends or audiences are really allowed - unless they go through similarly vigorous testing and there's even a snitch hotline apparently to report people violating the rules within. So it just tells you that there is a lot more that is being done to make this bubble work, so it only really takes one gap in the bubble for things to go wrong, and without the right resources there are a lot of doubts around whether it's even possible to maintain a safe environment despite all of these precautions.
Yogeeta: I agree. I think, at the very least, Skate America is doing the most they can do given the limited resources and the amount of travel the skaters do have to take. Conversely, NHK Trophy is actually not requiring COVID testing for athletes and accredited staff when they arrive for the event, they are only doing the 14-day health monitoring before the event, which seems very risky to me - and then you have to remember that NHK Trophy is actually going to have an audience. It's not even going to be a closed system like we have at Skate America because we will have audience members going in and out of the competition, so overall it seems extremely risky. I do know that they are probably doing this because Japan has had very minimal cases per day, I think they're at 500 cases per day for the past few weeks, so they must feel like this is okay. But at the same time, given our current situation, I would prefer as much precaution as possible - especially when you realize that the audience members potentially could interact with the skaters, even accidentally. I know that the organizers will probably try as much as possible to keep the audience away from the skaters, but one accidental interaction could lead a skater to getting COVID.
Lae: Absolutely, and I think it comes down to the requirements being pretty much at the whims of the federation organizing the event. If we take a step back as well, in terms of a competitive fairness perspective, I think it really makes a psychological difference to have no audience competitions versus competitions with an audience. The widely different safety measures put in place in each country also means that athletes will be under very different levels of stress before, both during, and after competitions. So, I think if you are an athlete competing in Skate America, for example, and you've got to go through all of those quarantine measures and be tested, that will naturally be a lot more disruptive than if you were allowed to just check your temperature and generally kind of have an okay health check and just go about your competition preparation as normal. So I think it hardly promotes fair comparisons between what the skaters have to go through before each event, and I think that the other thing to note is that many skaters during the offseason and in these intervening months haven't had equal amounts of access to ice time or at the very least, restricted ice time due to public rinks being closed. So although we know that injuries can happen basically at any time during training, under time pressure to get competition ready, which is usually a process that takes a good amount of weeks and months, to prepare for and manage your peaking and manage your run-throughs, I think it does increase the risk of injury to ask skaters to prepare for these big competitions and be in competition shape, especially given the short amount of notice that was provided to them.
Yogeeta: I agree, there have been several skaters who have already gotten injuries, and while we do know that skaters having injuries is not new to the sport, we could attest that many of these injuries that have happened over the past few weeks could have happened because skaters have been rushing to get the practice they need in order to compete this season.
Lae: Due to all of these factors, I really do think that either the ISU needs to step up and cancel the Grand Prix series in general or at least not pretending we're still having one as usual - especially in relation to these current developments of spiking cases in these countries. It's a good opportunity for skaters who are privileged to be in these Grand Prix countries to get some competition time, but in light of all these concerns, it's sort of incumbent on the organizing body to show a degree of leadership and to know when to focus their energies instead on perhaps the second half of the season, or even the next season, rather than save what feels like a quickly sinking ship. And I think that whether or not these events go ahead, or might be at risk of cancellation, it's important that the skaters know as much in advance so they can adjust their training and aim for the closest feasible competition - which could be in many months from now or could be their national events. I just think at the moment, it feels like the ISU is trying to spread their resources very thin across all of these events, and instead not managing much.
Yogeeta: I do think there is some way to hold an event safely, but the ISU needs to step up and actually put forward stricter requirements and guidelines that every country needs to follow so we'd have these consistent safety checks in place across all of these countries. I think that, ultimately, the Grand Prix Series being held is still a very important experiment in the eyes of the ISU, so they can see and learn from these events before trying to actually host events like Europeans, Four Continents, and World Championships - which will have to be international, given the nature of those events. But I don't think that they've put enough effort into getting everything they need in place at these events to actually learn correctly.
Lae: I think it feels like they've spread themselves too thin trying to get all six of the events to happen, whereas if they had just concentrated on maybe one or two Grand Prix events and tried to use that as a way to test some of these safety measures and how to properly manage athletes coming in from outside. It might have been more productive than, now, frantically seeing all of these flurries of withdrawals and seeing the rinks shut down and cases in countries worsen. I don't envy anyone currently on the organizing board, but I do think that it is really important to consider that the bigger fight, or the bigger challenge for them, is actually coming up in the second half of the season and so it would be really important for us, and for the skaters especially, to know what might be in store for them.
-end segment-
START: Shout Out of the Week
Yogeeta: So our shout out of the week, or shout out of the last 8 months, goes to Mai Mihara - who had her first competition back after taking last season off due to health issues. Her smile at the end of her Free Skate was so charming and just like instant sunshine and I've just missed her so much. Even if I'm still worried about her health, I'm happy that she's happy and you could see how happy she is on the ice. So, welcome back, Mai! I don't know how this season will go, but hopefully, this season treats you well.
Lae: Absolutely, I do worry that she does seem a little fragile still and I definitely hope that she is getting all the support that she needs. But I do think that it takes a very strong skater to face all of those health issues and still decide to come back to the ice and so I think the sport is richer for her being back in there.
Yogeeta: Thank you for listening, we hope to see you again for our next episode! Thanks to the research team for this episode, Evie for editing, and Gabb for graphic design.
Lae: And also our transcribing and quality control team. If you want to get in touch with us, then please feel free to contact us via our website inthelopodcast.com or on Twitter or Tumblr. You can find our episodes on Youtube, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify.
Yogeeta: If you enjoy the show, and want to help support the team, then please consider making a donation to us on our ko-fi page, and we’d like to give a huge thank you to all the listeners who have contributed to our team thus far. You can find the links to all our social media pages and our ko-fi on the website.
Lae: If you’re listening on iTunes, please consider leaving a rating and a review if you enjoyed the show. Thanks for listening, this has been Lae,
Yogeeta: and Yogeeta. See you guys next episode!