Eric Radford, a three-time Olympic medalist from Canada, stepped up to the microphone on Tuesday at a meeting of the global governing body of figure skating as delegates prepared to vote to raise the minimum age for elite participants in the sport to 17 years. the next three years.
“An athlete’s life is short and intense,” Radford, an athlete’s representative for the body, told the International Skating Union. “The experience in this short period of their lives sets the stage for the rest of their lives, physically, mentally and emotionally.”
Radford acknowledged that any short-term change could create disruptions in the sport, with more and more young athletes performing spectacular acrobatic moves.
But, he added, “Is a medal worth risking the health of a child or young athlete?”
Moments later, delegates voted 100 to 16, with two abstentions, to approve the proposal, a decision that could significantly change the complexion of one of the most popular Olympic sports on the international stage.
The ISU subsequently characterized the move as an effort to protect “the physical, mental health and emotional well-being” of skaters. But the decision came only after the governing body faced worldwide criticism over a doping scandal involving a 15-year-old Russian champion that marred women’s singles at this year’s Olympics in Beijing.
The change, which came at a body meeting in Phuket, Thailand, will be gradual: there will be no change for the 2022-23 competition season. But so-called senior skaters must be 16 years old in 2023-24, and 17 in the 2024-25 campaign.
The phasing-in means that the new, higher age limit will come into effect in time for the next Winter Olympics, in Milan and Cortina, Italy, in 2026.
In Phuket, those in the conference room where the meeting was held burst into applause on Tuesday as the number of votes was displayed on the screen.
“This is a very important decision,” Jan Dijkema, the ISU president, said of the rule change as the blows subsided. “I would say a very historic decision.”
The decision follows a major doping scandal at the Beijing Winter Olympics involving Kamila Valieva, a Russian speed skater who was just 15 at the time. Valieva, one of the top competitors in the world, was found to have tested positive for a banned substance in the run-up to the Olympic competition.
Valieva, who had helped Russia win a gold medal in the team competition before her positive test was made public, was allowed to continue in the singles event, which she preferred to win. But amid the swirling scandal, she finished fourth with an unusually uninspired free skate.
The ordeal again raised questions about the physical and mental safety of young skaters and whether enough was being done to protect them from the adults running their careers.
During the Games, Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, called on sports federations to investigate the behavior of so-called entourages after he saw Valieva’s coaches interact with her after she was tripped over by her performance.
“It was horrifying to see this,” Bach said of the interactions between Valieva and her coach Eteri Tutberidze. “Instead of comforting her, instead of trying to help her, you could feel this chilling atmosphere, this distance.”
The proposal seemed to have broad support in the international figure skating community, where the issue of introducing some sort of minimum age has been discussed and debated for years.
The ISU Athletes Committee quoted polls from its members showing that a vast majority of its athletes wanted to raise the minimum age.
Mirai Nagasu, who won a bronze medal with the US team in 2018, said she was especially in favor of raising the minimum age for figure skating to better ensure athletes are mature enough to “make their own decisions and gain access.” have resources that can enable them to understand the full scope of their decisions.”
She also noted that athletes under 16 are classified as “protected persons” by the World Anti-Doping Agency and are subject to a different set of disciplinary procedures and penalties. In Valieva’s case, the Court of Arbitration for Sport took her young age into account when determining that she could continue to compete in the Olympics while her case was still unresolved, a decision that caused some uproar around the sport. Raising the minimum age can prevent similar situations in the future.
Still, there were some people in the sport who opposed any change, often citing the short-term disruptions it would cause in the careers of young athletes and the federations that support them in the pursuit of medals.
Tatiana Tarasova, a top figure skating coach in Russia, suggested in an interview with Match TV that the rule was created specifically to target the Russian team.
“They see that in our country there are a lot of girls and boys, and they want to block that,” Tarasova said. “That’s why they started all this hassle. They can only block it by removing themselves from the competition.”