News re India and Portugal

The recent ISU council gave provisional status to the Ice Skating Association of India and temporarily suspended the Portuguese federation for lack of skating activity.

http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-145623-162839-50607-0-file,00.pdf

I had no idea there was any skating activity in India. I look forward to seeing their skaters in the future.

Anke G.

It's time this European Sport became totally international.

Joe

I agree skating should become more global in scope. I read a few articles about some Indian skaters. There was a named Singh who skate in Canada, I think there was an article about them on the Golden skate awhile back.

As far as I am concerned, the whole idea of National Federations is somewhat outdated. You see this especially with pairs and dance. I mean, if Jenny and Fedor want to compete in pairs, one of them has to change his/her citizenship, and they cannot continue to compete in US and Canadians singles Nationals respectively. There is nothing good for the sport in this. Also, you get teams with incredible depth, such as US or Japanese ladies who can only send 3 skaters, whereas skaters from other countries can go to Worlds with far less talent than the 4th place US or Japanese ladies. I am not sure what the solution is, but I definitely think it's time for some kind of a change. Also, what does it mean that Portugese federation is no longer an ISU member? Does this mean that a Portugese skater would not be able to compete at ISU events?

Ptichka said:

Does this mean that a Portugese skater would not be able to compete at ISU events?

Click to expand...

The ISU publication sounded to me like there are no portuguese skaters....

tdnuva said:

The ISU publication sounded to me like there are no portuguese skaters....

Click to expand...

Well, there was a Portuguese skater, according to the skater bios on the ISU website. Her name was Giovana Almeida Leto, but she hadn't competed since the 1997/1998 season. She's the only one I've ever seen from Portugal

Giovanna Almeida Leto

BTW- Welcome to Goldenskate, Matt. It's nice to know there are other guys like me who appreciate skating =)

This is her bio...it's rather short, and she's actually an Italian skating for Portugal...



Giovanna Almeida Leto

Here is a pic of her. It's a tad tiny, but if you are good, maybe you can enlarge it...

Giovanna and Humberto Contreras