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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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

This week, there will definitely be a decision on one major International Skating Union event cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic.

That will be followed soon after 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.

Votes are due today. Once they are in, 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.

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Can U.S. pair Calalang and Johnson repeat their shining moment?

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Can U.S. pair Calalang and Johnson repeat their shining moment?

Recent results would dissuade anyone from getting carried away over what seems a breakthrough performance by a U.S. pair.

Such performances have happened off-and-on in the past few decades, but not since 2011 has a U.S. pair finished in the top six at the World Championships. And not since 1996 has a U.S. pair won a world medal in a non-Olympic year. (Post-Olympic fields at worlds generally are watered down by the absence of the new Olympic medalists.) And not since 2002 has a U.S. pair won a world medal in any year. And only once (2015) since 2007 has a U.S. pair made it to the Grand Prix Final.

Even with those historical caveats, there is reason to be hopeful about Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson.

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Russian Quad Squad, Chen-Hanyu rivalry: Grand Prix season so far

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Russian Quad Squad, Chen-Hanyu rivalry: Grand Prix season so far

A little slow getting this onto Globetrotting, so here are a few updates:

*Anna Shcherbakova won Cup of China by nearly 15 points, making the Russian women 4-for-4 heading into the penultimate Grand Prix series event, Rostelecom Cup this weekend in Moscow (see item 1.)

*Shcherbakova got full credit on one of her two quad Lutz attempts in China (the other was judged under-rotated.) So 17 of the 21 women’s jumps credited as quads this season have received positive GOE (see item 2.)

*A second-place finish at Cup of China was the 12th straight Grand Prix medal for U.S. ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates and made them likely qualifiers for the Grand Prix Final (see item 10.)

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With the senior Grand Prix series at its halfway point and skaters heading for Chongqing, China for the fourth of six “regular season” events, here are 10 things we’ve learned from the series so far:

WOMEN

1. The kiddie corps of Russian women has been even better than expected – and expectations were very high.

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Who will win 2019 figure skating worlds? My gold medal crystal ball perfectly clear on just one event

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Who will win 2019 figure skating worlds? My gold medal crystal ball perfectly clear on just one event

There are two ways to do figure skating predictions.

One is based on the unlikely event that the top six or so skaters or couples in every discipline skate cleanly (wouldn’t that be wonderful to see.) Predictions then are relatively simple, since one can rely on measures of past clean programs and of pure ability.

The second method factors in recent performances, injuries, the way judges have perceived an athlete or team, how the athletes have done under pressure in big events and other intangibles.  These are much more valid but also trickier, given what might happen when you combine all that information with a slippery surface, knife-blade-wide skate edges and limit-pushing, extreme sports skills.

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In (sort of) suspending a skating judge, international federation mocks fans with ethical relativism

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In (sort of) suspending a skating judge, international federation mocks fans with ethical relativism

In mid-June, the International Skating Union gave a one-year suspension to Huang Feng of China for showing “obvious and systematic” national bias in his judging of the pairs event at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The first weekend of July, the international federation allowed Huang not only to attend an important ISU seminar on the ramifications of recent scoring system changes but also to take – and pass – a test for promotion as a technical controller, an event official's position that can have an even bigger impact on the outcome of a competition than a judge.

Huh?

The ISU willingly provided me an answer to that befuddling question, but the logic in the answer smacks of relative ethics in an area where absolute ethics are demanded.  The bureaucratic hair-splitting involved simply is unacceptable.

And the ISU's "discipline" of the miscreant judge gives skating fans yet another reason to wonder if they can ever trust the results in this highly subjective sport.

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