This episode has been transcribed, edited and condensed for clarity by Niamh, Kat, Tilda, and Evie.
Lae: 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. Hi, I'm Lae and I can't believe we're almost at the start of another Olympic season.
Tilda: Hi, I'm Tilda and I feel pretty silly right now about ever being excited about a home Worlds.
Lae: Yes, well, I guess you did get your home Worlds, but kind of a monkey's paw version of a home Worlds.
Tilda: Exactly, I was so excited because hosting you guys and everything - but that didn't happen.
Lae: Yes, sadly - and, as you may be able to tell - this is part 3 of our Worlds coverage for this year in Stockholm [Sweden.] In this, we will mostly be focusing on the organization of the competition itself - this has obviously been a running theme of In The Loop's coverage of this competitive season and, sadly, we're going to be revisiting a lot of the themes we've already discussed across all of our episodes this season. It also happens to be a continuation of Tilda's last hosting episode, which was Episode 53, where we talked about her expectations going into Worlds. As we said, the World Championships certainly did happen, and now it's time to do a little bit of a breakdown.
Tilda: They sure did happen. Going into the week, I was still like "Are they going to cancel it? Are they going to cancel it?" No, they did not. So, I think we want to address the key issues here and the first issue is that the Stockholm so-called bubble was inadequate. Where we were seeing loopholes and [the ISU] not following their own guidelines, and also the lack of transparency in reporting. This also raises the question: can we trust the ISU reporting any positive cases in this period after Worlds?
Lae: And of course, we also saw that there is a huge issue around the lack of sanctions and consequences for people who were clearly breaking the rules across the competition. I think the second theme that we're going to be covering is also the fact that it seemed like the safety measures and the entire competition was designed [rather] to coerce participation than give skaters and federations any real choice there. In that section, we will cover things like the indirect and direct economic and Olympic spots coercion that was happening in the lead up to Worlds and what sort of enabled the World Championships to go ahead.
Tilda: And the final key issue that we want to discuss is why the media is important and why it failed us here.
Lae: So, I think anyone involved in the Figure Skating fandom space will know that a big conversation topic going into Worlds was a fan-run petition called "No Quarantine, No Worlds," which criticized the ISU's claim that it was creating an adequately safe bubble that it was going to run the Stockholm World Championships out of. This petition amassed around 3,154 signatures at its conclusion and was briefly mentioned on CBC's coverage by the skater Asher Hill and as well as covered by publications, such as Inside the Games.
Tilda: And the project manager for Worlds responded to this in Swedish media with two arguments: one, that they were following the Swedish regulations and the second, that Worlds would not be able to be held if quarantine was required. I think that logistically a full quarantine would probably have been too much on the organizers - just having this Worlds in the form that they did was just a logistical and a financial challenge - especially for the Swedish [federation] who needed the ISU to be a granter for this. So a scaled-down quarantine bubble was probably the best that they were realistically able to do. I don't think that the planning they made was inadequate from their point of view of doing everything they could, and they did follow all of the Swedish restrictions in the planning stage. So, if you have faith in the Swedish authorities, their planning was fine from that point of view. From a strictly legal perspective, the Swedish organizers were acting in a way that was adequate - but the question is: do we think it was adequate?
Lae: Indeed. I think for us, the more relevant and pressing point is that in the broader context of how many different countries around the world have tackled COVID, and looking how different sports have tackled holding competitions in this current climate, the question is whether Sweden or the ISU can be held up to be exemplary in terms of the preventative measures, in terms of the choice and the transparency that they gave to skaters, their federations and all the fans watching this go down. I think I have to say, from the perspective of an Australian who witnessed how an event like the Australian Open was handled, this was honestly such a woeful contrast. You know that the Swedish authorities were acting in terms of what was strictly legal in their country, but you look at the Australian Open, which cost $100 million AUD, with heavy support from the local Melbourne government for the quarantine process. It involved a 3-week bubble where all the staff and athletes who arrived on a flight with a positive case had to be quarantined for 14 days strictly in their hotel room. They were tested all the time during the event, and Melbourne actually went into a temporary circuit breaker lockdown midway through the competition due to an outbreak that was detected, and so everyone - even locals who weren't spectating at the competition - had to go back into hard lockdown. Spectators were banned from the venue until those cases were isolated and that was all seen as a necessary precaution and part of the way the bubble functioned. As a result, the Australian Open was held and Melbourne currently has no active cases - and has not had any active cases for quite a period of time. You could argue that that was one of the most successful competitions in sport that was held and, definitely, the one that was done with the most caution in terms of COVID despite the outbreaks, and just outlining that you can see the difference between that and what was happening in Stockholm. I think also there was the Fencing World Cup in Budapest where you can also see that was a bit closer in terms of the way it functioned to the Stockholm bubble and we know that despite the fact that staff were screened daily with an antigen rapid test - they had almost 2,000 PCR test and 4,000 antigen rapid tests throughout the competition - there were still 8 athletes that tested positive for COVID after that competition. And that was a competition with a stricter bubble than what we saw in Stockholm as well. So, we really know that these bubbles don't always work, and they are very logistically complicated to do.
Tilda: I think we have to say that the Stockholm bubble was not a real bubble in the way that it has been used across the year within sport, so everything that happened within it was inherently a gamble with everyone's safety. Now looking back on it, it hasn't been a super-spreader event in the way that we thought was the worst-case scenario, but I think that's more due to luck than due to their safety procedures being adequate.
Lae: Yeah, I think that was definitely a theme that seemed to run in there was a general apathy towards COVID safety, and it is very much by luck and also a question of whether we had the adequate measures to even contact trace everyone who might have been involved in that to determine whether it truly was free from being a spreader of the pandemic.
Tilda: I do see a lot of foreigners saying there is a general apathy towards COVID safety in Stockholm - and they are correct. The Swedish national restrictions only recommend face masks during rush hour on public transport, and the Stockholm local authorities have further added that face masks should be worn at all times on public transport and in indoor places where close contact could happen, such as stores for example, and I assume that the arena would also have been included in that. But there is no enforcement of the restrictions and not many people follow them, according to my experience on the subway, only like half of the people wear face masks and hardly anyone wears them in businesses. But the ISU and the Swedish fed obviously believe that the Swedish restrictions are adequate and, during this period, cases in Sweden and Stockholm have been on the rise and even if the restrictions were adequate, if there is no enforcement and people don't follow them, there is such a widespread disregard for the rules and I think that should already make one reconsider if it's enough to just blindly trust the word of the authorities.
Lae: I think there's such a distinct difference between every countries' attitude towards COVID and it's undeniable that some countries policies from the start, like Sweden's, were distinguished precisely because the attitude was basically to not impose any restrictions, versus somewhere like Australia where we had several hard lockdowns and we definitely have governments that are taking it a lot more seriously. So people here are - even though we've had no cases in Sydney in quite a long time, no community transmissions - the general attitude is still "Hey, you should wear a mask on public transport." Only recently, since restrictions have been formally lifted, have people stopped doing that. It definitely comes out of the overarching attitude that comes from the top of the government involved.
Tilda: The attitude from the Swedish authorities has been personal responsibility. That every individual should make the choices that they think are best for the safety of the general public and that we trust that the citizens are aware of the risks. But I think we've seen for a year now that you can't trust the general public, you just can't.
Lae: There's too much variety and everyone has the right to say they have the freedom to do whatever, but when it comes to something that is dependent on community cooperation, we find it hard to see an instance where everyone can act in the same way.
Tilda: Yes, and just today as we're recording this, Uppsala, which is a city that is just North of Stockholm, had its authorities begging people to go into personal lockdown. They're not adding in any restrictions but they were going out and saying "Please people, go into lockdown now," because the cases are on the rise and the ICU is overwhelmed at the moment. So, at that point shouldn't you start enforcing the lockdown instead of begging people to do it?
Lae: I think in terms of speaking of begging people to do things, if we look a little bit closer at the Stockholm bubble, I think it becomes very clear that this so-called bubble, as they kept calling it, had some massive loopholes within it. I think the key ones that we're going to point out is there was no requirement in the bubble rule for those who are in close contact with someone who had contracted COVID to withdraw or not be allowed at the event which, given a bubble is so dependent on everyone who enters it being guaranteed to be COVID free, seems like a pretty glaring requirement that was missing from the rules.
Tilda: And the second one, which is the most important one, is that there was no quarantine period. People entering the bubble took a test and had to isolate in their hotel room until a negative was confirmed. Everyone was supposedly tested every four days, so that is twice across the course of the event, with over 3,000 tests being made, which is just not adequate from a quarantine perspective.
Lae: COVID-19 has a proven incubation period of 2 to 14 days and, apparently, neither the ISU nor the Swedish government really understood this, which made me feel like everyone that helped to set up this bubble was spending their whole time building a fortress and then locking it with a piece of paper. It just made no sense.
Tilda: Yeah, and the Swedish authorities do seem to understand it insofar that a Swedish person returning from abroad has to isolate for 2 weeks or 7 days after a negative test result. But within the Swedish restrictions on travel and the event, there are a bunch of exceptions for elite sports, and we saw the results of that here.
Lae: Which is crazy. It's like COVID doesn't go up to you and is like "I'm sorry, you're a professional athlete. Let me move next door to the next person." It blows my mind, I cannot put this into words. An infected person can still get a false negative if they're tested too soon after exposure, but they can still be transmissible - which is the key point in how a pandemic spreads. This is why every country that has imposed has advised people to self-quarantine for a few days, even after a negative test result, because symptoms could still develop in that incubation period, so it made no sense for the competition to only require skaters to arrive two days before the start of the first event because it would mean that the entire event happened during the transmissible period where you would have a very hard time detecting positive cases in these PCR tests.
Tilda: And there is also the danger of the false positive which did supposedly happen here. So we have the Armenian Dance team, Tina Garabedian and Simon Proulx-Sénécal. They were not allowed to compete after a positive test, which later appeared to be an error from the organizing committee, mixing up their documents and giving them incorrect information about their status. A false positive obviously has a huge impact on them as athletes, especially if this event is used as an Olympic qualifier. I don't think there would have been a danger of false positives if there had been proper quarantine measures because then one single test would not have been the final say. And we know that there is a danger of both false positives and false negatives, and when you rely on single tests to determine whether or not someone gets to compete, you run the risk of allowing infected people into the bubble and shutting out non-infected people.
Lae: If you had enough time to quarantine beforehand, you would have more chances to ensure that positive tests and negative tests were delivered within a reasonable span of time, and they were more likely to be accurate. So again, this feels like the result of that rushed period of just, test, okay you're fine, go into your competition, and then one test on the day will determine whether or not you're allowed in.
Tilda: I don't know if this shows a lack of understanding and ignorance by the ISU, or if it's just willful negligence. I mean, either is bad.
Lae: It really is, and it just misses the point that a bubble is, by definition, only as secure as the first person inside it who gets COVID. And then, if you're interactions within the bubble are not regulated or distanced the way that everything else is, then there's no point of a bubble! Like, we saw a positive test present itself on the very first day of practice, so it literally burst within a few hours of it starting. And I don't feel like we've stressed the madness of that. I think the second aspect of why this bubble is so questionable is the contact tracing that occurred after the positive test. So after what we assumed was the false positive of the [Armenian] dance team [Tina Garabedian/Simon Proulx Senecal], because the announcement didn't actually name the people identified with the positive test, the ISU tweeted that, "the close contact cases were quickly identified, investigated, and tested, and the ISU can confirm that the PCR test of the close contact cases were all negative, and the positive test is in quarantine," etc. Which, supposedly, gave them the justification to say that they've taken care of that whole thing properly. But again, if we revisit the idea that there is an incubation period between a negative test and symptoms showing up where there is a risk of the negative test being false, it doesn't mean that just one test without any further quarantine will show that those people are definitely not infected, because again it misses the point that there is an incubation period. So it definitely is questionable that even the mitigating measures that the ISU had in place for these positive cases were strictly adequate when you think about how COVID actually works.
Tilda: And I think there is also the issue of a lack of transparency because they had a reliance on self-reporting. Anybody who experienced symptoms in the bubble was required to self-report to the designated team leader, and there is no monitoring other than temperature checks and the second PCR test. So, as we'll see further on in this episode, there are many reasons why there is an incentive to keep quiet and that doesn't even account for if someone is asymptomatic.
Lae: And I think there was also a significant delay between the ISU identifying the second positive case and actually announcing it to the media, so again it raises the question of, what incentive do they even have to honestly report any cases throughout the competition, given that there are so many incentives to just let it blow over until the end of the week.
Tilda: And there was also a severe lack of sanctions. We had a running theme of skaters, coaches, organizers, and senior staff not obeying the basic rules of quarantine. More than whether or not it's strictly safe, it's the attitude of complete disrespect that was so dispiriting to see and it did make it very obvious that safety measures were little more than farces, starting from the very senior members of the ISU down.
Lae: It was just ridiculous to see it go down, even on social media. And again going back to what we're saying about a bubble being as secure as the first person who has [COVID], if you look at how people were interacting within the so-called "bubble," people were allowed to mingle, be in close contact with each other, and operate without masks within that bubble as though qualifying to be inside suddenly meant that all of the risks of COVID transmission didn't exist - which would make sense if the bubble was secure, but as we just mentioned about the incubation period, there was absolutely no guarantee that that was the case. So that actually made the behavior within the bubble more dangerous, because you couldn't be guaranteed that everyone who was interacting within it was absolutely negative, but they were interacting in a way that would've made it very easy for any positive cases to spread. So it seemed, in particular, that the Russian team had been at their own training camp for a few weeks before leaving for Stockholm - though we don't know many details about what safety measures they were under during that period. But it felt like they took this bubble concept as kind of a permission slip to just act as though COVID didn't exist as soon as they were inside the bubble.
Tilda: Yeah and we did see the Russian team on the plane together unmasked, taking photographs together, still posing at public airports on either end, along with [Jan] Dijkema and [Alexander] Lakernik in a large group photo-
Lae: Which, again - that's the ISU president right? [Tilda: Yes!] The ISU president in a group photo with people not wearing masks, apart from the airport staff. It was absolutely crazy, I guess especially from the perspective of someone who's used to seeing everyone in these settings wearing masks. It really felt like we were living in some alternate reality with the Russian team. There was also the case of just restrictions imposed by the ISU being blatantly broken for no reason by Russian coaches. [An] example of this was the Sambo-70 coaches, Eteri Tutberidze, Daniil Gleikhengauz, and Sergei Dudakov-- all flew in as coaches despite only having two competing skaters, who were Anna Shcherbakova and Morisi Kvitelashvili because, and I quote, "The Sambo-70 school is great." Like, that is literally the reason they gave for allowing three coaches instead of the mandated two, to fly and see their skaters compete. And that was just sort of brushed aside as there's no other explanation.
Tilda: Yeah, I mean, we did see offensive behavior from other coaches as well, and we did mention in the last episode, [Alexander] Zhulin posting on Instagram a photo of him putting his foot on the boards when they weren't allowed, and the caption did seem to mock the safety restrictions. And I mean, we also had [Alexei] Mishin who had his mask under his nose the whole time, and Ari Zakarian, who is [Evgeni] Plushenko's manager and - I'm still not sure why he was in the bubble in the first place - he also caught with nose above the mask. And then [Ilia] Averbukh posted on social media walking around Stockholm without a mask and then, presumably, went back in the bubble. And all this with no known sanctions for people caught breaking the rules.
Lae: No known sanctions, they were just allowed to post whatever they wanted, skaters were posting as well on social media, showing how conditions were inside. And that's where we got a lot of our information from as well. And in addition to that, we had Swedish local performers for the Worlds Exhibition Gala, but they were staying at a different hotel from the rest of the skaters - so, presumably, not in the primary bubble - and it was unclear whether or not they were tested. And we know that some were international skaters selected through an open audition. But we also saw them walking pretty freely in and out of the stadium. So again, it raises so many questions about exactly who was being allowed in this bubble and what was being done about people who were blatantly not respecting the very minimal rules that were already in place.
Tilda: And let's say the most dreaded word in this entire year: buffets.
Lae: Indeed, buffets!
Tilda: Many hotels in Stockholm still, for some reason, have breakfast buffets, even when most other restaurants and places don't do it anymore. And their measures to make buffets "corona-safe" such as spreading out guests over a longer period of time and disinfecting the coffee machines, do seem laughably inadequate. And the organizers reference in interviews, takeout delivered to skaters rooms, etc. So a buffet seems very out of line with how they presented themselves, even offering alternatives such as room delivery is assuming that people are able to make the right decision and avoid the buffet that is being presented to them.
Lae: Yeah, we saw that on a skater's social media as well, the existence of a buffet - it wasn't broadcast, but it then raised questions about what else was going on behind the scenes that they didn't talk about but was clearly laughing in the face of all the commonly accepted COVID prevention measures.
Tilda: And they also had an arcade and a general play and break-out area that seemed designed to encourage people to interact, which we've also seen from social media.
Lae: And also on social media, we noticed that during the start of competitions where competing skaters were preparing to take to the ice, they had tubs for the skaters to put their masks and skate guards and belongings in, but there were tubs placed right next to each other on a narrow table that the skaters then had to mill and congregate around, which generated enough backlash on social media that it was moved for the subsequent competitions, but then we saw on someone else's social media post in the practice rink that those tubs were still placed in the same manner in the practice rinks. So again, yes, maybe they were disinfected, but is this really taking these prevention measures very seriously?
Tilda: Yeah. And then the crowd...
Lae: Can we talk about the crowd for a second?
Tilda: Yes, let's talk about the crowd!
Lae: Look, okay, I am the last person to deny a skater the energy of full crowd support, like I think that is a luxury that I wish that every skater could have in these hard times. I know that it is so weird to be skating to silence and applause. But COVID is transmitted through respiration. It is a common directive that in enclosed spaces with a lot of people that it is not advised for people to yell and shout and holler, which we definitely saw after many skaters' performances. And the Japanese competitions, like at Japanese Nationals, at the very least the audience was masked up and not allowed to cheer, only to applaud. So that plays a really big contrast to the full crowd of skaters and spectators, coaches, etc. that we saw in the audience for a lot of the skaters' performances in Stockholm.
Tilda: I mean, there were supposedly around 150 volunteers, which is around half of what it would've been with an audience. And then we have all of these officials and coaches and all of the skaters and cameramen and journalists - I mean, it all adds up to a pretty considerable amount of people who are in the arena. So even without an audience, we could see in the broadcast people sitting in clusters around the arena cheering for competitors. On the grand scale of things, it probably wasn't the biggest issue at this competition, but surely there was enough space in there that they could socially distance, and why did they not enforce that?
Lae: They had like three sides to the arena that [were] completely empty, and I know everyone loves to get prime spots, but at the very least try and spread out a couple of rows rather than gathering everyone in the one space that completely defeats the point of social distancing.
Tilda: So, we want to talk about coercion, the implications of Olympic spots, and, basically, blackmailing skaters to attend - which we find is even more disturbing than everything we mentioned thus far.
Lae: It's so important I think to recognize that there is indirect and there's direct coercion, and you're unlikely to see people making direct threats about forcing feds or skaters to attend. But it is this invisible pressure that we want to talk about here. I think the first bit that is concerning was the economic coercion in this entire World Championships because the ISU made it very clear in its guidelines that it wouldn't pay for the expenses of anyone wanting to arrive earlier than the 1 to 2 days that was required by their guidelines, to attend the World Championships. So again, if a skater wanted to be safe, properly following accepted national and international guidelines about COVID safety and quarantine, they would've had to fork that out of their own pocket. And we know that Japanese journalists, some of them arrived early to quarantine and interviewed most of their skaters remotely-- and media and journalists were only allowed remote contact. But they were, presumably, doing that completely out of their own pocket. So for skaters who obviously don't necessarily have the backing of a big publication or media organization body, what were the economic consequences for actually trying to protect themselves from COVID in the safest way possible? It would be very difficult for them to do so.
Tilda: And the other thing is that any skater that did fall ill and had to quarantine longer would have to pay for their own expenses, including, for example, minors - who were forbidden from bringing family members here. But there is a huge implication for having minors and then not allowing them their parents with the risk of falling ill and having to stay in quarantine. That is a disaster waiting to happen.
Lae: Falling ill in a foreign country, having to quarantine there, pay yourself, and then presumably have your coach stay with you. It's a very ridiculous and awful situation that was a very real possibility for anyone who might have tested positive during the course of the event. And related to that, there was also a clause in the guidelines that required all attendees to sign a waiver that declared that the ISU would not be held liable for any COVID-related damages. Again, this was the ISU trying to wash its hands of any consequences that arose from the issues related to its bubble and the inadequate safety measures in there. You don't really waive your responsibility unless you are trying to protect yourself against the possibility that it will happen. What does that say about the ISU's attitude towards how responsible they felt for their athletes' safety?
Tilda: For example, the ISU did not provide any masks which I think is interesting when in the guidelines it requires mask-wearing, but everyone had to bring their own masks. So they're not really thinking about how to make it easy to stay safe here.
Lae: Yeah, and the Russian team even had masks with valves in them, which are actually not sterile and not recommended with safety guidelines. They're not COVID-safe masks. Again that came down to if you tell people to BYO their own masks, they may not follow the standard that you wish for them.
Tilda: And then there is the second type of coercion that we wanted to discuss here, which is the allocation of Olympic spots. We did discuss this a bit in episode 53, that there are a lot of difficulties in how to allocate spots in the current climate. We did conclude that there was no good way of doing it this year considering all of the competitions being canceled.
Lae: But if you think about it, [if the ISU] had seriously anticipated that this would be an issue and wanted to find a fair and equitable solution for determining Worlds spots, recognizing that all skaters from different countries had wildly different preparation times and competitions, they had an entire year from the time of Montreal Worlds being canceled to come up with some sort of solution there. And they, frankly, did not. They pushed ahead with the original Worlds plan and there was no indication that they had considered any other solution for recognizing that Worlds was a pretty dangerous course of action to go-ahead for.
Tilda: I mean, Olympic spots have always been decided through Worlds and a second competition in the fall, in this case, Nebelhorn. Since there wasn't a [proper] Grand Prix Series this season, basing it on World Standings and [Seasons Bests] would be incredibly flawed. But what would have happened if Worlds hadn't been the main basis for Olympic spots? Would as many skaters have decided to compete here? Would the feds have decided to risk their athletes' health by sending them to a Worlds with questionable COVID measures?
Lae: Yeah, I feel like you only have to look at the number of countries that boycotted, for example, the Speed Skating World Championships in the Netherlands this year. The event was not an Olympic qualifier, so Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, Chinese Taipei, and Great Britain all pulled out of that. It does seem as though many federations had doubts about the wisdom of world championships when there is no Olympic spot to act as an incentive.
Tilda: I can't help feeling that the Olympic spots being on the line forced skaters to attend when they otherwise wouldn't have. And this is incredibly upsetting to me because it essentially forces feds and skaters to choose between the risk of attending a possibly unsafe competition or losing their spots. I think it's appropriate to use the word blackmail here. I mean, there is still Nebelhorn, but most spots are allocated at Worlds. And especially for big feds who hope to qualify multiple skaters, there is no other alternative.
Lae: I think you just have to look at Canada, for example, as one of the big feds. I think it would've been one thing if Canada had led the protests and other big feds had supported its decision to price athletes' safety above all, but even Canada - which had so far canceled its Nationals citing COVID safety reasons - basically fell in line one by one as the ISU started to announce the way that the World Championships would interact with Olympic qualification. Before the ISU confirmed that the selection criteria for Olympic spots wouldn't be changed for Stockholm, Skate Canada originally alluded to the fact that they may not send a team to Worlds due to safety concerns. But then, after the ISU's meeting in late February, they basically doubled back on that and sent a team anyway. Because it's the only way they could get multiple spots in each discipline because Nebelhorn only lets you get one in each. So you ended up with, basically, skaters with massive disparities in training and competition experience.
Tilda: And this wasn't regulated at all by the ISU. We did see the Russian team having competitions non-stop all season, and then there was Team Canada who didn't even have their own Nationals - and you know, Swedish Nationals was also canceled. And I think we wanted to mention [Gabriella] Papadakis and [Guillaume] Cizeron, who were very notably absent from this Worlds.
Lae: So both Papadakis and Cizeron got COVID in July of 2020, and though they're currently healthy they withdrew citing the need to recover and also focus on the Olympic season. We know that they're the reigning World Champions, and Ice Dance record holders, with a lot of sway, so this was significant. But I think it's really important to note that there were several exceptional reasons that they could do this.
Tilda: So the first one is that the French federation basically sacrificed their chance at getting more than one Dance spot [at the Olympics]. The speculation is that it was more logistical, given that Gabi would find it difficult to return to Canada given her current visa status and the border restrictions currently in place. She didn't even actually attend a family funeral because of it, so I think that's important to keep in mind. And P/C are basically France's only hopes of medalling next year at Beijing because we don't really see any other skaters in other disciplines who could foreseeably medal. I think that from the French fed's perspective, allowing them to skip does make sense.
Lae: But I think the same can't be said of other big federations because, obviously, they want to guarantee that they'll get the maximum number of spots for the Olympics, so they have the most opportunities of having someone on the podium. As a result of that, the World Championships were their only outlet, which is why Russia ended up sending a bunch of teams from Zhulin who had COVID earlier in the season. It's why the US and Canada sent lots of Gadbois teams, even though many of them were horribly undertrained, because it was very hard to access ice time in Canada because Canada's COVID restrictions and lockdown measures were a lot more severe compared to other countries. It was very much understood as a duty for skaters to secure the Olympic spots, judging by the comments made by Team Japan representatives. You can talk all you like about skaters having a choice, but when your country's entire Olympic spots hinge on your performance at the World Championships, do skaters really have a choice in that?
Tilda: And we also don't know how this will factor into Papadakis and Cizeron's reputation with the international judging panels and the ISU going into next year. It is very possible that they could be punished for their decision to sit this one out, and going into the Olympics as no longer the reigning World Champions.
Lae: I think they did allocate spots somewhat differently this year. We do talk about this a little bit more in parts 1 and 2 of our Worlds coverage but, as a consequence of that, we did see more skaters from smaller federations managed to qualify a spot for their countries.
Tilda: Obviously, this is something that we're very happy about on its own, and it feels especially important this year when smaller fed skaters were as a whole disadvantaged due to the difficulty of holding domestic competitions, and the lack of training opportunities. So I think that this is the one positive that we can see in the way that they allocated Olympic spots.
Lae: But I think, again, if we're going to go back to the topic of coercion, let's talk also about the fact that the rules for participating in the exhibition gala - which I would argue if you're going to cancel anything, that should probably be one of the first things that should be on that list - were incredibly draconian.
Tilda: Yes, oh my God!
Lae: Why have an exhibition gala of all things in a pandemic when you're trying to limit exposure?
Tilda: It is insane because all of those skaters are on the rink together at the same time!
Lae: And the fact is if you, and I didn't know this until I actually looked up the rules for this, but if you're invited to an exhibition gala, you have to perform or the ISU can choose to bar you from events for 60 days afterward. And if you miss practice, you have your exhibition fee cut by 50%, which is really, really harsh, and given withdrawing is only allowed for medical reasons as well, like, what are they? It's like a mafia, - this is mafia cutting rates. [laughs]
Tilda: Yes, the ISU is a mafia. [laughs]
Lae: You saw many skaters in the gala rehearsal were not wearing masks on social media. We know they had group numbers with foreign Swedish skaters, we also know that a Yale study showed that COVID was more transmissible in ice rinks, because of the way the atmospheric pressure worked. Again, we are putting our best skaters in the world, who've just won world medals, all in a space with like 60 other people and making them skate under lights, and we're going to cut their pay and bar them from competitions if they decide to choose otherwise.
Tilda: Yeah, and this is an indoor sport. Just that fact, that it is an indoor sport with close contacts. I mean, let's just emphasize that for a moment because that is a huge danger. Just that in itself. And I think this makes sense if you think about it only from the angle of the organizers doing everything they could to prioritize their revenue and broadcast streams more than the athletes' well-being. It doesn't make sense from any other angle.
Lae: It really doesn't. And I think speaking of the topic of coercion, I think there is definitely a train of thought around the fact that "Hey, there was a petition, and no skaters really spoke out in support of it, no skaters really addressed the Stockholm Worlds, and they didn't complain - so why are you as fans making such a big deal out of it?" And to that, I say that if you think about the way that this sport works, it is very difficult for actively competing skaters to speak up about any controversial issue. And while we'll grant that there is no guarantee that there's any approval or disapproval from skaters, given that very few have addressed the issue in general, it is just part of the nature of the sport that to say “Hey, just because skaters didn't speak up in support of a cause or movement means that there's no support for it.” I think that would be a very naive point of view to take, in the context of figure skating being a judged sport that is very reliant on the favor of federations and the governing body that are behind all of the judging.
Tilda: And especially right before the Olympic season as well. Nobody wants to piss off the judges. I think all of the skaters feel that they have to be very careful. I think that's also why you see that skaters don't complain about their scores because they don't have any mechanism of challenging the judges' decisions and I think they're very aware of that fact.
Lae: I think the only skaters who have really publicly spoken about their concerns have been those with a comparative amount of sway. So we've addressed, obviously, Papadakis and Cizeron withdrawing, which was probably the most prominent form of protest against the event. But we also saw specifically Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu in interviews before and during the event reference the worries that they had about competing and the fact that they were taking safety precautions and were concerned about the coronavirus. So I think that was basically the most that we got from skaters actually addressing the issue of the pandemic in the event. But I think it doesn't necessarily mean that all skaters were happy campers and totally excited to compete, you know.
Tilda: According to the project manager for the event, the athletes have been largely happy and the only complaints were supposedly about bad coffee during the initial isolation. Let's just let that sink in a bit. I think they're all happy campers, Lae! [laughter]
Lae: Yeah, I think I've always compared the ISU to any corporate company, you know? I don't know anyone who is completely candid with HR, and I would not expect skaters to be so with competition organizers where their scores and their subsequent Olympic judging will hinge on how pleased the judging and organizers are. And I think we do allow the space to acknowledge nuance. I think it's very natural for competing skaters to have mixed feelings about the event. Obviously, we've also spoken to skaters in our past episodes who have mentioned the importance of the need to compete in maintaining that sense of momentum and motivation in their training. So those who could train did train, there were Olympic spots on the line here, so we can only speculate that it is definitely believable that athletes would have wanted to compete here, and were happy to have competed here too. But I think we can only really speculate on what they actually think behind closed doors and in their own hearts. And as a general rule, we don't like to speculate too much on that, but I think it is very difficult to deny that there must have been a lot of different opinions on whether or not this competition should've been held.
Tilda: Right, and I think that brings us to the final key issue that we wanted to address here, which is: why is media so important? Here it's important to take a step back and understand why we scrutinize the tone and nature of media surrounding a sport. For example, in figure skating, the power structures are that federations manage the sport in their own country, and then they are managed in turn by the ISU, which is, of course, the wider governing body. And then you could argue that above the ISU is organizations like the IOC which has the ability to determine if a sport is an Olympic sport or not, which we saw quite recently for example with [Synchronized Skating] not being permitted to be in the Olympics. So, when it comes to holding a federation or governing body responsible for its actions, the upper governing bodies have a duty - but this often needs to be spearheaded and prompted by pressure from the public and the outside.
Lae: And, as key disseminators of information, the media surrounding the sport, therefore, plays a big role in shining light on injustices and holding federations accountable - especially in situations like in judged sports where athletes can't easily speak up without having to consider any repercussions on their judging as a result of that. So that's why we place such importance on examining how the tone and nature of the media coverage around the World Championships have played a role in both enabling the governing bodies to continue what they're doing and why it's so critical to be critical of them. So we also know that the IOC was also approached by the No Quarantine No Worlds team, but they basically said that the management [of the event] was up to the ISU. So we're in a bit of a closed-circuit here where we're relying on the ISU to govern itself and to police its own behavior which, if you've worked in any organization, is a bit of a blind spot for most and especially for the ISU. So, again, if there was going to be any kind of movement spearheading change or increased safety measures at Stockholm Worlds, it was going to be something that was going to be led by the media.
Tilda: I have taken a look at the coverage from the Swedish media - as the token Swedish person here - and I can just say straight-up that there has been no critical news coverage from Swedish media. And, of course, Swedish media has never really been very interested in figure skating as a sport and, even with a home Worlds, there hasn't really been a lot of coverage. What coverage there has been has mostly been fluff pieces on "Yay, we got a home Worlds!" and we have some reporting on the results of the Swedish skaters at the event. There have been a couple of articles mentioning COVID-19 and the measures taken as well, of course, as the positive cases that were identified. But they basically just quote the organizers and seemingly take it for granted that it was as safe and as successful as the organizers are claiming that it was. I think it does follow a wider trend of Swedish media being very uncritical of the Swedish authorities during COVID-19 in general, but seeing it [here] is quite disappointing.
Lae: I think it goes towards this idea that we expect our journalists to be the ones asking the difficult questions and to see them act as little more than regurgitated PR pieces is pretty depressing in general - and is by no means unique to just Swedish media. I think, in particular, you would expect more from figure skating journalists specifically but, as someone who has been part of the figure skating media sphere for a while now, I think that would be expecting quite a lot from the figure skating journalism circle. But I think, especially when the Canadian federation was considering not sending a team at all, given the way that the ISU has acted throughout this entire season, given that half of the Russian National team had come down with COVID at some point throughout this season, you would have thought that there was plenty of actual subject matter that was meaty for journalists to sink their teeth into. But I think what's really important to note is the power dynamics that exist within the figure skating media sphere. So it's important to note that access to figure skating events, and therefore skaters in order to interview them and to speak with them, is determined solely by the federations who run these events and can be just as easily taken away from them, in the same way, that judges are selected by federations. I think, at the end of the day, most figure skating journalists that are prominent in the scene have very close ties to their own federations and are arguably prominent because of the support of those federations. In a similar way that skaters are understandably hesitant about speaking out publicly against their own federations or against the organizing bodies running their sport, I think you can make a case that journalists are in quite similar positions. Creating an environment for unbiased journalism is very difficult when you know that a federation would have the power to immediately bar you from being accredited at the next event as soon as you said something that they were displeased with. It's this power imbalance that I think is really important to recognize and I think what makes the figure skating media sphere quite an unhealthy one. I think it's also important to note the interests of rights holders and broadcasters as well.
Tilda: I think this fundamental lack of cheques and balances and choice in the sport means that the ones in power can run rampant. I think, as of now, there isn't a lot of opportunities to challenge the ISU within the sport.
Lae: Yeah, I think you can really understand why there's such a major conflict of interest right? It applies in critical coverage around the organization of events like Stockholm, all the way down to scoring. What are the benefits of a journalist within the figure skating sphere, who has built their career on having access to skaters and to events, being critical right now, and how are they being protected from any consequences to their access that they have if they were to speak out? There are no cheques and balances, basically.
Tilda: And I think that's why we saw that no official media source, like figure skating publications, voiced concern from an institutional perspective. Thus they sort of threw it on the skaters to keep themselves safe and I think that's due to what we've just mentioned.
Lae: You definitely saw, for example, prominent figure skating commentators like Jackie Wong on his Twitter - I think the most he addressed this entire issue was with a tweet urging skaters to take precautions. We know that he's super well known and has close ties with the [USFSA] but in the context of all that he tweeted throughout the event, that was one tweet and that was one set of reporting that he broadcast to his pretty big platform.
Tilda: Sports Integrity Initiative did cover it and, essentially, the ISU refused to answer their very legitimate concerns - including the lack of consideration for the incubation period of COVID-19, which is pretty depressing when you read it.
Lae: Yeah, and it was a third-party that was approached by the No Quarantine No Worlds team so, again, this was fans of figure skating doing the work of critical journalists and trying to appeal to organizations outside of the figure skating media sphere in order to try and get some sort of critical coverage on a publication.
Tilda: And the ISU just completely refused to address it at all.
Lae: So, ultimately, I think at the end of the day, the emotional toll of watching this whole thing go down has really just fundamentally made a lot of fans reassess their relationship with the sport and its governing body. I think for me, as a marketer, the tone-deafness of the Stockholm Worlds promotional posts and the ISU's in this lead-up period was such an indicator of how much it all concerned the ISU and [how much attention] the organizers paid to the fan voices. While you had people on every social media post asking them to answer to the glaring loopholes in their plans months before, they were [instead] announcing a podcast or the official theme song of the World Championships. In a normal competition period without COVID, these would be fun marketing tactics that we haven't seen the ISU deploy in the past and we know, judging by their annual budgets, that the ISU invested heavily in their marketing. But, as someone working in that industry and space, I have really huge doubts about the way they just seem to fundamentally not understand how they're alienating a large part of their demographic that most actively uses the channels they've heavily invested in. Nor do they understand the brand that they're trying to establish and crisis communications in general.
Tilda: And it's also about the level of respect shown to the service staff of flights or to medical staff around the world that have been exhausted on the front lines fighting COVID - as well as everyone else in the world who has been by affected in the past year. So to see people privileged enough to have their own chartered flights and the relative safety of a training camp just completely flaunt that status without even attempting to do something as basic as wear a mask is just indicative of the whole attitude that they had adopted this entire week. And I think that something that is technically legal to do doesn't necessarily mean that it is a considerate or an empathetic thing to do. You talked about from the marketing perspective, we can see the tone-deafness. We can see this affecting the brand of the ISU and the loss of faith.
Lae: The absolute loss of faith, the loss of confidence in the organization, the very clear evidence that the organization has absolutely no regard for the voices of its most passionate fans - it's very much not surprising. But I think, especially in the context of the ISU very visibly trying to boost its brand, it's misguided at best and is something that I would absolutely caution them against when they're trying to push ahead with making figure skating popular again.
Tilda: So all that we've talked about here in this episode basically comes down to: was this an unsafe event? If it was, forcing skaters to attend in order to get Olympic spots was really terrible of the ISU from both an ethical and marketing perspective. Skaters should have been able to assess the risks and decide whether or not to attend themselves without any undue pressure. But Olympic spots are a very important thing to have on the line here.
Lae: And I think it was very clear that the ISU knew exactly which levers to push in order to get their desired outcome, which was for this to be the deciding event for Olympic spots and to have all of the big federations attend with their best skaters. I think you could argue that they would not have had that many other alternatives, but with everything that they've done from a transparency perspective to the options and the requirements that they made for their skaters, it's very hard to say that the skaters had a choice that was transparent and equitable going into this.
Tilda: I think, to finish off this episode, we just wanted to talk a little bit about World Team Trophy, which is happening this week. It seems that they're destined to repeat the same mistakes but for even less gain this time.
Lae: I think the fact that the safety document that they just released for WTT looks like a copy and paste job from Stockholm... It's such an indicator of what we're destined to repeat, which seems to be Groundhog Day. But I would actually argue that the situation in Osaka is even worse than in Stockholm, so I don't know where they're going with this, to be very honest. But, bluntly speaking, at the time of recording this, Osaka is currently in a medical state of emergency. But not only are the ISU and the Japanese Skating Federation not canceling the event, they're not even conceding to run the event without an audience, which they had planned, and they're also advertising that they're broadcasting this competition in cinemas [across 59 cinemas across 36 prefectures in Japan] - including Osaka and Tokyo, where the numbers are skyrocketing at the moment.
Tilda: This is mind-boggling.
Lae: It's like literally watching a burning bus just careen down the highway, and not only are we not trying to stop it, they're just adding more oil like every single mile that it's burning. Especially considering that the Tokyo Olympics are meant to be happening in mere months, we know that the triathlon Tokyo Olympic qualifying event was canceled because they couldn't meet isolation requirements for international athletes. We know that the Olympic Torch Relay, which was meant to go through Osaka around this time, was actually canceled by the governor of Osaka, again, because of the skyrocketing cases. So WTT is apparently more important than the Olympic Torch Relay for the Tokyo Olympics being held in Japan, which I find absolutely mind-boggling.
Tilda: But we have to talk about why that is so and I think that reason is that World Team Trophy has the biggest monetary prize pool out of any ISU competition and that could be a big factor in federations and athletes deciding whether or not to take part. Especially with how many competitions have been canceled, it feels like they need this.
Lae: Just financially, yes, because figure skating is such an expensive sport, as we've covered in the past. Skaters have definitely lost a lot of opportunities to earn an income to support their competitive careers throughout the year. I just personally want to make clear that I can't blame any skater in these circumstances for trying to recoup some of that cost. For me, all of the responsibility lies on the organizers.
Tilda: And I mean, World Team Trophy isn't even a real competition but it is a massive show for the JSF and I think that is why they've decided to go ahead with it. Not because it is important to the sport because it's an important competition like Worlds is, but because it is a massive spectacle.
Lae: It's a massive spectacle for sure and it replicates the Olympic Team Event. It is an ISU official event in that the scores are counted towards Seasons Bests and World Records but, as we all know from its reputation, it tends to be an event where the judging and the competition itself doesn't follow a usual format and it's not considered an official ISU competition in that sense. But I think that also World Team Trophy has very shockingly strict rules as well around athletes withdrawing. If they do withdraw for any other reason besides medical reason, they could face not being allowed to participate in any skating events for a period of time during and after the competition as decided by the ISU. So, again, what does that even mean?
Tilda: And this isn't even a real competition that they need to have held. It just seems like it's being held for the most callous reasons that you could imagine.
Lae: It's also interesting that there was an announcement as of the 12th of April that an emergency declaration wouldn't be decided until after the 19th of April, which is when WTT ends. I'm just going to put it out there that it is very interesting that the current president of the Japanese Skating Federation, Akihiza Nagashima, is an MP in the House of Representatives of the ruling party. So, I'll leave it there but, when we talk about incentives, there are some interesting ones in there. Shall we talk about logistics?
Tilda: Let's talk about logistics!
Lae: We know that the Russian team has apparently chartered another private flight into Osaka to avoid quarantine measures again - and I would just like to remind people that we have only been about two weeks out of Stockholm, so they've presumably gone back to Russia, not quarantined, and are now flying into Japan in the middle of rising cases in the pandemic without quarantining again.
Tilda: And then you have the Team Japan skaters who, presumably, have been in quarantine with minimal training in between, just to contrast this.
Lae: And, in even more contrast, we know that China has actually made the decision to pull out of the event altogether.
Tilda: And then we also have the Canadian team being entirely different from their Worlds team, which is probably because the Canadian Worlds team would have had to quarantine in Canada after flying back from Worlds, only to fly to Japan and quarantine again. So I think that was also probably a smart move. How will World Team Trophy even work in terms of the set-up of the country booths around the Kiss and Cry? Where, you know, the skaters sit and cheer for their team?
Lae: The whole point of WTT?
Tilda: Yeah! I mean, are they going to have miles and miles of plexiglass?
Lae: I have no idea. I will be very sad if they can't put stupid hats on each other and cheer, but that is what they have to do in order to stay safe, especially in the context of rising COVID cases and that's why sporting events like this are considered a luxury that we have to put on hold in order to not overwhelm our front line medical workers who are working their butts off day and night to keep us all safe and healthy.
Tilda: I guess by the time this episode comes out we will have seen how it ends up, huh? Before we can rest and pray that next season is less of a dumpster fire!
Lae: I know that the tone of our coverage this entire season has been very negative, but I think it's coming from the perspective of people who have seen the devastating effects of COVID on their own countries and countries around the world. As much as we all desperately wished for the optimism and joy of figure skating to play a comforting role in our lives, I think it's equally as important to understand that skaters, volunteers, and audience members participating in these competitions are also people and that their roles in not only preventing themselves from not being infected but also preventing themselves from infecting others have a direct consequence on medical staff and people who are vulnerable to COVID. So if we can put a caveat on the fact that we have been quite critical of the way that competitions have been run, I think it's worth asking the question of how much does the ISU recognize the facts we just mentioned and where does that rank compared to the rewards of your broadcast, sponsorship money and the cost of trying to keep the sport running as well.
Tilda: And on that cheerful note, I think we're going to end the episode. Thank you for listening, we hope to see you again for our next episode!
Lae: Thanks to our transcribing and quality control team, Evie for editing, and Gabb for graphic design. We’d also like to thank the No Quarantine No Worlds team for the time and effort gone into compiling information into easily accessible threads, which we have referenced in this episode.
Tilda: If you want to get in touch with us, then please feel free to contact us via our website inthelopodcast.com or on our Twitter. You can find our episodes on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
Lae: 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.
Tilda: You can find the links to all our social media pages and our ko-fi on the website. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a rating and a review if you enjoyed the show. Thanks for listening, this has been Tilda,
Lae: and Lae. See you soon.
Tilda: See you soon!