ISU Announces Reallocation of Placements Due to Valieva's Disqualification
SYWTW FS
2022 Olympic Team Event: The new ranking is as follows:
1st place: USA (65 points)
2nd place: Japan (63 points)
3rd place: ROC (54 points)
4th place: Canada (53 points)
5th place: China (50 points)
Valieva’s 20 points from the Team Event were removed from ROC’s total, but the remaining women’s scores were not changed.
2022 Olympic Women’s Event: Valieva disqualified from 4th place.
2022 European Championships: Valieva disqualified from 1st place. The new podium ranking is as follows:
1st place: Anna Shcherbakova
2nd place: Alexandra Trusova
3rd place: Loena Hendrickx
ROC Response: Following the ISU statement, the Russian Olympic Committee announced that it would appeal the ISU decision on the Team Event to CAS, on the grounds that sanctions against an individual athlete should not be the basis for reviewing results for a team event.
Skate Canada Response: Skate Canada disagrees with the ISU’s decision on the Team Event and will consider an appeal. They cite Rule 353 of the ISU’s Special Regulations and Technical Rules, which states that “Disqualified Competitors will lose their placements and be officially noted in the intermediate and final results as disqualified (DSQ). Competitors having finished the competition and who initially placed lower than the disqualified Competitor(s) will move up accordingly in their placement(s).”
If the women in the Team Event who placed below Valieva were moved up one placement and given 2 additional points for the short program and free skate, the final Team Event ranking would have Canada in third place (55 points) instead of ROC (54 points).
Additional Note: In an ISU document detailing the qualification process for the 2022 Olympics dated December 2019, it is stated that for the Team Event, “The ISU Judging System as described in the 2020 ISU Special Regulations Single and Pair Skating/Ice Dance shall apply, in particular but not limited to Rule 352 and Rule 353.” However, no direct mention is made of how a disqualified athlete may affect the final scores and ranking in the Team Event.
Feb. 9, 2024 Update
The ISU has released another statement regarding the Team Event placements. Excerpt as follows:
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decision announced on January 29 that the retroactive application of Kamila Valieva’s disqualification is the responsibility of the sports organization concerned, notably the ISU. The ISU has remained resolved to ensure that the applicable rules and principles as well as the CAS decision are correctly followed, and that any changes to the results were applied accordingly.
The decision of the ISU Council with regard to the consequences to the official results of the Team event of Beijing 2022, clearly expressed in the ISU Statement of January 30, 2024, was based on a comprehensive evaluation from legal experts. This evaluation was, in turn, founded on the applicable rules and principles that are specific to this OWG Team event and is, therefore, the only decision that complies with the CAS Panel’s award. For the sake of clarity Rule 353 para 4 in the ISU Special Regulations is not applicable in this case.
In any complex and extraordinary situation like this, the reallocation of points could negatively affect the relative team ranking, adversely impacting teams that had nothing to do with the incident in question. Therefore, we have to abide by the rules and principles. In light of this case, we will further clarify the rules and principles moving forward to ensure any such cases are dealt with more efficiently in the future.
The CAS decision itself may be subject to appeal, therefore the ISU will not be discussing this matter in further detail in public at this stage.
Feb. 26, 2024 Update
CAS has officially registered four appeals of the ISU’s decision regarding the Team Event placements, one from the Canadian team/Skate Canada/Canadian Olympic Committee, and three from the ROC team/Figure Skating Federation of Russia/Russian Olympic Committee. Canada seeks the bronze medal, while Russia seeks to keep the gold medal. Proceedings have begun, but there is no indication of when a hearing may take place (if any).