Americans Skating for Other Countries

The Galit Chait situation is very interesting. She was born in Israel and really it is totally acceptable that she chooses to skate for that country. Skating with Sergei Sakhnovsky, I believe that at every head to head intl. competition she & Sergei always placed higher than then U.S. national champions, Lang & Tchernyschev. What if she and Sergei had skated for the U.S.? Would they have been the national champions? Does Sergei have U.S. citizenship? He, too, lives here. And how would they have fared against the rising stars Belbin & Agosto? And how would being the U.S. national champions have affected their international standing, if at all?

emma said:

Out of curiosity, does that...or has that...actually happened? Likewise, when people receive US citizenship who weren't 'real US skaters', does that knock 'real US skaters' out of contention? Seriously, I'm asking (my opinion on the matter was best sung by John Lennon...you know, imagine...i'd just like it to be more than a fantasy).

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Kristin Fraser (of Palo Alto, California) and Igor Lukanin (of Sverdlovsk, Russia) represented Azerbaijan in the last several World Championships (finishing 13th last year) and also at the 2002 Olympics (17th). Fraser is Lukanin's second American partner with whom he represented Azerbaijan, and before that he skated skated for Germany with a different partner.

I am not sure what connection Kristin has with this country. At one time their training base was Maryland and their coach was (and still is, I believe) Alexander Shulin. I do not know whether Fraser has ever been to Azerbaijan.

Here is an article by Barry Mittan about this team, from the Golden Skate archives.

http://www.goldenskate.com/articles/2002/121502.shtml

I doubt that Azerbaijan has any other top level ice dancers, so I don't believe that this is a case of taking an opportunity away from another team. Probably not. In fact, I am not sure how much of a figure skating program this country is able to maintain. My impression is that they let anybody skate for them who is willing to, regardless of nationality.

They are active in the ISU, howerever, sending judges (probably Russian) to various international events.

Joesitz said:

It takes a very special family without Government assistance to support a child's interest in chamionship figure skating. Peggy Flemming comes to mind immediately. Picture the family being uprooted to spend time in Colorado. Picture the mother sewing that chartreuse dress by hand. It was not an easy life for them. Others also had the same tough going. Much depended on the families.Joe

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And Kitty and Peter Carruthers' parents drove cars with over 200,000 miles on them, ate countless meals of spaghetti, and generally scrimped along for years to fund their pairs training.

Michelle Kwan is a wealthy young woman, but she came from a family of just average financial means. In order to finance Michelle and Karen Kwan's figure skating training - which included residing at Lake Arrowhead, their parents mortgaged the family home and went into debt, bigtime.

A number of top skaters grew up in single parent homes where money just wasn't all that plentiful. I really admire the tenacity and determination they had to see that their daughters and sons pursued the sport they loved.

Mathman said:

I think the point that St. Louis Blues Fan was making is that everyone in America came from somewhere else, even if their ancestors crossed the land bridge from Siberia 20,000 years ago. That should not automatically give a person the right to skate for the country of his distant ancestry.

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Thank you, Larry.

And Ritymeez, I am not trying to get into any confrantations here, but please re-read my post. I said "almost everybody", not "everybody". There's a diffirence. Furthermore, Irish is not a race - it is an ethnicity. If I offended you, then I apologize. But why does it offend you so? There's nothing worng with being part Irish. I have to say that "most" biracial friends I have are indeed part Irish. They are also either part African, Korean, German, you name it. America is a melting pot, and people do intermarry across cultural, religious and racial lines. Nothing wrong with that.

Going back to the topic - I don't think that the American skaters who were mentioned above really take away an opportunity from others - the "natives" if you will - because in most of these countries there is no real established figure skating programs (I do think that those that come out of retirement just before the Olympic season do jsut that, but that's a different topic). I can't imagine anybody seriously training in former Yugoslavian states that were in wars during the 1990's. I suspect that both Nina Bates and Trifun Zivanovic have become the national champions by default. I do think, however, that they may inspire somebody from the new generation in these countries to take up skating.

I guess a good example would be Misha Shmerkin, who was born in USSR and then moved to Israel. He was the first to represent Israel in the winter Olympics (1994 or 1998). Since then a number of youngsters (both Jewish and Arab) have taken up the sport (and a new skating facility has been built in Mettula). Sure, right now most skaters that make it to the big events are either USSR or USA trained, but there is a number of up and coming skaters who were born in Israel.

Kristen Frazer and Igor Lukanin are a different story! I do not even think that Igor has any Azeri ties. As MM states, it just may be the case of a federation taking just about anybody to represent them. Most otehr inter-national couples have at least one of the partners with ties to the country they represent.

There is one more American who represents one of the Baltic states, I think it is Latvia. Her name is Clover Zaltzman and she is an ice dancer. But she does skate with a Latvian national by birth.

Yana

Other U.S. skaters who skated for other countries include Yvonne Gomez (for Spain in 1988 Olympic) and David Liu (for Taiwan/Taipai in the early-to-mid 90s, I believe). Both, I believe, competed in the U.S. Championships more than once (not sure on Gomez, but Liu did). However, both have strong ties to the countries they represented, too. Gomez's parents came from Spain (I believe she had dual citizenship) and she has relatives in that country, speaks the language, was married there. David's parents also came from Taipai, and again, he's fluent in the language, spends time working there and is very comfortable (and I think holds dual citizenship, though I'm not sure).

Also, Jennifer Goolsbee was an ice dancer back in the early 90s -- she competed in the U.S., then her partner retired or something to that effect. She found a German partner and eventually applied for German citizenship and did become a German citizen (I think she was from German ancestry on one side of her family). She really wanted to go to the Olympics, but I think it didn't work out. I recall some problem with the German Federation not wanting to send them (or she hadn't been a citizen long enough or something) for one Olympic set, and then maybe an injury or then didn't qualify for another.

Competing for another country and/or applying for citizenship in a country that isn't your native land would be, I think, a tough decision and something that would be individual with each person, skater or not. Some athletes do seem to "shop around" for the place that will give them the best chance to achieve their competition-level dreams, which I don't think I'd be comfortable doing, but I guess it's not mine to judge without knowing all the variables that go into these decisions.

emma said:

Ok...I hear what your are saying and see that we are closer to fully agreeing than not...but I guess I just find myself imagining that Shen and Zhao or Bauil, who lived far from home etc, and had state support, still had it hard....Peggy and her mom had it hard too in a different way; Sasha's family was uprooted too...so i find the differences less and the similiarities more

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Likewise, consider Plushenko, who ended up all alone, on his own, at the mature age of 11...

But what about the ice dancers in who live and train in the Philippines.

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There are no senior ice dancers competing as far as I know.

American Susanna Driano skated in the Olympics for Italy, winning the bronze in 1978 at the World Championships and placing 5th at Europeans that same year.

Canadian skaters have gone this route as well. The Duchenays - ice dance team from Quebec skated for France. They figured they would never get a top spot in Canada with B&K always in the limelight. It worked for them.

We have also had other skaters come here and train and either represent their own country or ours. Takeshi Honda has trained in Canada for years. Right now D&L - ice dance team from Quebec are training in France, but they still represent Canada.

Tenith Belbin is a Canadian. She is skating in the States with Ben Agusto.

Nothing new here. Skaters are always looking for partners. Sometimes they have to look abroad.

Mathman said:

I think the point that St. Louis Blues Fan was making is that everyone in America came from somewhere else, even if their ancestors crossed the land bridge from Siberia 20,000 years ago. That should not automatically give a person the right to skate for the country of his distant ancestry.

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If that were the case, Mongolia ought to have a lot of skaters! LOL

mememe said:

Also, Jennifer Goolsbee was an ice dancer back in the early 90s -- she competed in the U.S., then her partner retired or something to that effect. She found a German partner and eventually applied for German citizenship and did become a German citizen (I think she was from German ancestry on one side of her family). She really wanted to go to the Olympics, but I think it didn't work out.

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I don't know about any troubles they may have had getting there, but Jennifer Goolsbee & Hendryk Schamberger DID compete at the 1994 Olympics and placed a very nice 9th place I also liked their program, a Jewish folk music dance.

She later tried to continue her skating career for Germany, after 1995 when Hendryk Schamberger had quit and teamed up with Samuel Gezalian (former partner of Tatiana Navka), but that team didn't really get off the ground, I don't remember what exactly happened in the end. In 1996 they had back luck with illnesses and injuries, and while they did win German Nationals in 1997 (and I have them on tape skating a show together in Germany in the same year I think ), I'm not sure if they ever represented Germany internationally.

In regards to the topic, I think especially in dance and pairs, the situation would be quite depressing if skaters couldn't look for partners from other countries, especially many smaller countries (small in regards to skating tradition especially) might never be able to build a skating program without some "foreign" input. And it's hard enough finding the "right" skating partner for a team, without being bound by country limits additionally. Who knows if Aljona Sawchenko would ever have found a partner good enough for her in the Ukraine and she's such a talent, it would have been a shame if she had ended up a partnerless "pair" skater there, just because there's no good enough guy in the Ukraine. It took her long enough to find somebody as it was (first Morozov from Russia and now Szolkowy from Germany).

emma said:

But I do agree that state funding for arts, sports, and education (science, humanities, etc.) are so important, and as we watch, in the US, more and more of what was once 'the public' become private, more and more of the arts, sports, etc. be eliminated from or decreased drastically in size from our national and state budgets...the more distressed i get.

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I don't think you get what I said yet. Sasha has it easy as far as finances are concerned. Her uprooting at that time (by choice) had the family with her and living well. She has the best of all worlds. Kwan now has it since she became a money maker. Baiul was another case in point where the State offered her something she would never have had. Shen and Zhao were better off with Government sponsored sports than living at home. I remember him saying something like that. They had an advantage as far as skating is concerned.

And yes!!!!! State funding for arts, sports and education are important!!! We all know that and we don't disagree. But that does not exist in the USA for figure skating or any other sport for that matter.

The question remains for you: Does State sponsored Figure Skating give an advantage to skaters who have it and a disadvantage to those who do not have it?

It's a simple question. It doesn't need specific personalities. (Attracting blacks into figure skating took a fund raiser.)

Joe

Joe...thanks for keeping at it with me...I just think that maybe you and I interpret things differently....I am simply not prepared to say 'x' is an advantage (in this particular case state funding) because TO ME that implies a uniform and measurable, well, advantage....to use an analogy, it would be like a runner running the '50 yard dash' race but only having to cover 45 yards...a 5 yard start advantage....So for me to say state funding provides an advantage, i would need to be able to say precisely how (and it would need to be uniform for all those who receive it).

I do agree that the former Soviet and current Chinese state support for skating/skaters made/makes it possible for those skaters 'benefited' to skate...and they might like or it praise it ....or not....without that 'benefit' many US families had to pinch pennies, work extra jobs, eat less or less well, mortgage houses etc....I get all that, really...but that does not mean that a) those soviet or chinese skaters 'felt' the advantage the same way a runner would have in my example above (in fact, as individuals, they may have experienced pain, fear, loss etc that potentially negated any advantage they were awarded; OR like your Zhao example, they may well awknolwedge the support and like it, yet still sacrifice a ton...and that too is real); b) i find it hard to compare apples and oranges....individual families in the US may have sacrificed tons, but by the sheer fact of living in the US, they have numerous 'advantages' too...that other people in other countries simply do not (for example, rinks that work, cars for transport, phones to make arrangements etc etc...these are all 'advantages'...does anyone really feel them as such in the moment of waking up at 3:00, driving to the rink, taking a second mortage, etc?). LIkewise, families in the Soviet Union with skating children may have had better apartments, and may not have had to do the 3:00 am shuffle or find financing....but how advantaged did they feel when they missed their children? What kind of pressure to succed did that place on those children?

Anyway....the other thing that bothers me about the 'advantage' thing is that is sets us (people in general) up once again for all the old cold war ideology debates..."THEY [evil communist people] win because they have an 'unfair' advantage"....sorry, but I just cannot stand those kinds of arguments.

emma said:

... Anyway....the other thing that bothers me about the 'advantage' thing is that is sets us (people in general) up once again for all the old cold war ideology debates..."THEY [evil communist people] win because they have an 'unfair' advantage"....sorry, but I just cannot stand those kinds of arguments.

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ITA! The governments of certain countries have made a decision to support their Oly athletes to varying degrees; if the USA wanted their skaters/hockey players, etc. to be competitive during the cold war, it could have chosen to provide more support -- and in the US (unlike the USSR), the athletes who didn't like it, had alternatives to persuade the government to provide more money. When it came to Oly medals, the EVILLE Communists reaped the rewards of their choices; when it came to landing the first man on the moon, the USA got to reap the rewards of its choices.

Joesitz said:

I don't think you get what I said yet. Sasha has it easy as far as finances are concerned. Her uprooting at that time (by choice) had the family with her and living well. She has the best of all worlds. Kwan now has it since she became a money maker. Baiul was another case in point where the State offered her something she would never have had. Shen and Zhao were better off with Government sponsored sports than living at home. I remember him saying something like that. They had an advantage as far as skating is concerned.

And yes!!!!! State funding for arts, sports and education are important!!! We all know that and we don't disagree. But that does not exist in the USA for figure skating or any other sport for that matter.

The question remains for you: Does State sponsored Figure Skating give an advantage to skaters who have it and a disadvantage to those who do not have it?

It's a simple question. It doesn't need specific personalities. (Attracting blacks into figure skating took a fund raiser.)

Joe

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One benefit to state sponsored sport like in the old communist countries is that it may attract more people to try. In western Europe the stigma that all male figure skaters are gay puts off a large number of boys who might be very talented at it but don't want to pursue it because of the stigma. Equally maybe someone won't even give the sport a go on that basis. The benefits that skaters in eg china receive for skating and doing well far outway any stigma that might be attached to figure skating.

Ant

attyfan said:

ITA! The governments of certain countries have made a decision to support their Oly athletes to varying degrees; if the USA wanted their skaters/hockey players, etc. to be competitive during the cold war, it could have chosen to provide more support -- and in the US (unlike the USSR), the athletes who didn't like it, had alternatives to persuade the government to provide more money. When it came to Oly medals, the EVILLE Communists reaped the rewards of their choices; when it came to landing the first man on the moon, the USA got to reap the rewards of its choices.

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but they still get to claim the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin) and first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova), as well as the first man to take a walk in space (I think it's German Titov, but I am not sure.

It is possible to support both sports, arts and science.

Yana

STL_Blues_fan said:

but they still get to claim the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin) and first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova), as well as the first man to take a walk in space (I think it's German Titov, but I am not sure.

It is possible to support both sports, arts and science.

Yana

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I didn't mean to imply that a government couldn't support it all. I mearly wanted to state that governments should reap the consequences of the choices they make. The US chose to support a specific space program, and got a reward; the USSR chose to support sports and other space programs and got different rewards. The US, though, should not whine about the rewards obtained by the USSR when it chose to support certain programs -- sports or space -- that the USA chose not to support.

STL_Blues_fan said:

but they still get to claim the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin) and first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova), as well as the first man to take a walk in space (I think it's German Titov, but I am not sure.

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Also the first dog in space (Laika).

But th U.S. gets credit for the first monkey in space and also for the first monkey to survive a space flight (unfortunately, not the same monkey).

I remember the big panic in the U.S. after the first Sputnik was launched. We used to go out in the back yard and watch for it passing over. The politicians kept warning us that on the next pass it would start dropping atom bombs.

That's why the U.S. suddenly decided we'd better get on the stick and devote the resources needed to put someone on the moon. That way, we could throw more atom bombs at them than they could throw at us.

At that time the U.S. also maintained four nuclear-armed submarines whose sole job was to hide under the arctic ice pack and not come out under any provocation. The point was, if the world war three came along and the world was destroyed in a nuclear holocost, afterwards the U.S. would still have some atom bombs left and the other guys wouldn't, having used all of theirs to blow us up.

Ah, the good old days.

Mathman

Emma - I'm beginning to think we ought to push this thread to where it belongs into Le Cafe.

Anyway, If I am correct in reading your last post, You are undecided as to whether government sponsored sports have more leaverage in winning more medals than those of non-government sponsored sports. (note: I changed advantage to leaverage, if that helps you.)

Your bringing up hardships for skaters and their parents has nothing to do with the question. There are apparent hardships in both systems, and we are all aware of the hardships for any skater. But this is not my question. If you wish to start a thread on hardships, by all means do so.

Also it has nothing to do with the cold war. Many States both socialist and capitalist support their Sports. The US just isn't one of them. It doesn't have to by the rationale that baseball doesn't need government support, why should figure skating?

I contend that Government sponsored sports greatly assists those States in winning more medals than States with non-Government support. Of course, there will always be an exceptional sportsman with or without Government support, but the entire team needs the support. JMO.

Joe

OK - I'll bite!

I think "Government Support" needs to be defined. The money in the US coffers comes primarily from Taxpayers. And we need to consider the various levels of Government - Federal, State, Local.

I would submit that there are a number of sports that recieve plenty of "Government Support" here in the USA - and that begins through the school systems (public ones anyway) which utilize taxpayer dollars (hence in my eyes, government support) to fund school sports programs. Obvious examples include baseball, football, basketball and to a lesser degree, other sports. It just happens that Figure Skating is not (at least to any significant degree I'm aware of) part of this type of Government Support.

Regardless of the type of Government in any country, I'm sure the "government" (in our case, elected officials directing tax payer money) are choosing sports to support, and not to support.

So... kids going to public schools that offer various sports programs have more exposure to those sports than other sports that are NOT offered through the schools. So we tend to have lots of great basketball players, football players and baseball players since many kids are exposed, and therefore the ones with "talent" for those sports are more easily discovered.

If the USA instead chose to make Figure Skating a widely offered sport in the public school system, more gifted kids for that sport would be identified (with so many more exposed), and also financially supported through the early year school programs, scholarships at the higher ed level, etc.

I suspect that hockey is an example of a sport that recieves similar "Government Support" in Canada, but I could be wrong - I hope someone from Canada will comment.

Countries pick and choose what sports programs they want to focus on (just like all other matters of public policy). I doubt that any country under any economic system is providing Government Support to ALL sports - it's a pick and choose thing. Figure Skating just hasn't been a chosen sport in the US for Government Support purposes. (at least not to a large degree like the other sports I mentioned)

So I do think government financial support ads leverage / advantage to a sports program. I guess my point is that we DO have government support for some sports in the USA, just like China has government support (in a different form)
for some sports, and other countries other sports.
Just my 2 cents...