Greece and Puerto Rico out of ISU | Golden Skate

Greece and Puerto Rico out of ISU

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
At the ISU Council meeting at Worlds, Greece and Puerto Rico were suspended from ISU membership. The case of Puerto Rico seems straightforward -- this program has not produced any skaters who can participate in international events and seems to have collapsed altogether. But for Greece apparently the ice sports federation got in trouble with its own national Olympic committee and minister of sports. (I think the HISF is mainly about hockey anyway.)

Dpoes anyone know anything about this situation?

http://static.isu.org/media/198197/1933-decisions-of-the-council-communication.pdf
 

CaroLiza_fan

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I'm sure you've all heard about the economic problems in Greece. The country basically went bankrupt in 2010, and to prevent it leading to the collapse of the single-European currency, Greece had to be bailed out by the EU (read Germany). And as part of the conditions of the bail-out, Greece had to make massive cut-backs in their spending.

Unsurprisingly, these cut-backs didn't go down too well with the public, and it led to riots.

Anyway, the protests died down eventually, but the cut-backs have continued. A few months ago, there were elections in Greece, and an anti-austerity party came to power. And they have refused to make any more cut-backs.

And this has created new problems, as this stance hasn't gone down well with the organisations that were funding the bail out.

Given the dire state of finances in Greece, I would not be surprised if the HISF had been closed down by the government to save money. At the end of the day, sport is not a priority when the country is on it's knees.

This is a major problem for Greek skaters. Can they compete if they don't have an ISU -sanctioned Federation? I know there have been instances in the past where people that have qualified for an Olympics, but their NOC has subsequently been suspended (usually due to the country breaking up), have been able to compete as "Independent Olympic Athletes". So, can the same happen here?

But, as you can probably work out from the first part of her surname, Isabella is actually German (ISU Bio). So, at least she may have a means of escape.


As for Puerto Rico, I was actually more surprised at them being suspended. Yes, I can understand that if there is no skaters, there is no point in having a federation.

But, what happens now if some kid that is good at skating does want to represent Puerto Rico? Does PRI have to go through the whole process of setting up a Federation again? Or can they just pick up where they left off?

CaroLiza_fan
 

Interspectator

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Dec 25, 2012
^^^ thanks for the information. Wow, I hope the skaters in Greece can find some way to get on the ice; even if it's for another country.
 

Nirti

Medalist
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Nov 24, 2008
The only greek ice rink in Athinai was closed in 2004, and since, the championship was held on a provisional rink. But I hope the federation will be recognized again by the greek olympic committee.

As for Puerto Rico, I was actually more surprised at them being suspended. Yes, I can understand that if there is no skaters, there is no point in having a federation.

But, what happens now if some kid that is good at skating does want to represent Puerto Rico? Does PRI have to go through the whole process of setting up a Federation again? Or can they just pick up where they left off?

CaroLiza_fan

Puerto Rico's skating federation lost the agreement of his Olympic Committee some months ago and the federation was dissolved. It was announced in their website - who doesn't longer exist.


I think Granada's federation will be excluded soon too.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
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Nirti, do you think the Greek federation will hold a championship somewhere this year? It is not necessary to be ISU recognized to hold championships, although sadly, it does require money. Perhaps the Greek skaters can enter the Cyprus championship, or one of the open championships?
 

Flaya

Match Penalty
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Feb 13, 2014
I would not worry much about Greece not participating, hopefully they will be back once the economic situation will become better. I hope it will happen sooner than later. Greece managed quite a few top 24 positions at Worlds, mostly in Pairs. The most recent top 24 result was in 2010 when a Greek pair ranked 21st out of 25.

If I am not mistaken their hockey federation was also disbanded/suspended and they do not participate in Worlds since 2014.
 

silverfoxes

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Feb 16, 2014
But, what happens now if some kid that is good at skating does want to represent Puerto Rico? Does PRI have to go through the whole process of setting up a Federation again? Or can they just pick up where they left off?

Puerto Rico is a US territory, so is there some reason why they couldn't they represent the US? :confused:
 

Flaya

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Feb 13, 2014
Puerto Rico is a US territory, so is there some reason why they couldn't they represent the US? :confused:

I believe they would not be able to, as Puerto Rico has its own Olympic Committee and Sport Federations.

But having said that, any Puerto Rican can move to "continental" US at anytime, so if someone is interested in competing internationally they will relocate to the US.
 

StitchMonkey

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FWIW Rohene ward was 1st at the Puerto Rican Championships the same year he was 16th at U.S. Championships. So there is some sort of history of doing both.
 

CaroLiza_fan

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I believe they would not be able to, as Puerto Rico has its own Olympic Committee and Sport Federations.

But having said that, any Puerto Rican can move to "continental" US at anytime, so if someone is interested in competing internationally they will relocate to the US.

Although it's slightly off topic, I believe this is the same situation in Hong Kong. Athletes from HK can't automatically represent China, because HK has it's own NOC.

Macau also has a NOC, but it hasn't been recognised by the IOC yet. And I don't know if anybody from Macau has competed at the Olympics for either former colonial power Portugal, or for new colonial power China.

On the other hand, when the Netherlands re-organised their overseas territories a few years ago, the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved. Three of the islands became constituent countries of the Netherlands, while the others became a direct part of the Netherlands.

The NOC of the Netherlands Antilles was also dissolved, and the IOC said the islands couldn't sustain their own NOC's. From now on, athletes from the islands can either represent the Netherlands, or Aruba (which left the Netherlands Antilles in 1986, and has had it's own NOC since then).

At London, athletes from the Netherlands Antilles competed as Independent Olympic Athletes.

CaroLiza_fan
 
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CaroLiza_fan

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FWIW Rohene ward was 1st at the Puerto Rican Championships the same year he was 16th at U.S. Championships. So there is some sort of history of doing both.

Very interesting! Thank you for telling us that.

I guess that kinda discounts what I just wrote! :laugh: :rolleye:

CaroLiza_fan
 

StitchMonkey

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Very interesting! Thank you for telling us that.

I guess that kinda discounts what I just wrote! :laugh: :rolleye:

CaroLiza_fan

Well I don't know if he ever represented Puerto Rico internationally. And it was only one year. So who knows. I figured I would toss it out as it seemed at least tangentially relevant.
 

Nirti

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Nov 24, 2008
Nirti, do you think the Greek federation will hold a championship somewhere this year? It is not necessary to be ISU recognized to hold championships, although sadly, it does require money. Perhaps the Greek skaters can enter the Cyprus championship, or one of the open championships?

I don't know for this year championship, no announcement on the federation's website. But it's not an obligation to be an ISU member to hold a championship, the Liechtenstein's one is announced as the 4th, and countries like Singapore, Malaisia and Indonesia held nats some years before entering the ISU.

If I good remember, Serbia was briefly excluded from ISU because of administrative reasons but was readmitted shortly after...
 

Icey

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Nov 28, 2012
There should be some at large competitive positions for those skaters who have no country.
 

CaroLiza_fan

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Why not an "Independant skaters" status, like the "Independent Olympians" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Olympians_at_the_Olympic_Games)? ;)

Just a quick comment to let you know that the link isn't working. You need to move the "[/url]" to before the bracket and the question mark to get it to work, i.e.

Why not an "Independant skaters" status, like the "Independent Olympians" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Olympians_at_the_Olympic_Games)? ;)

By the way, I had already brought up the suggestion of skaters from countries whose Federations had been suspended competing along the same lines as "Independent Olympic Athletes" in my first post in this thread. But nobody bit!

So, thank you for bringing it up again, as I would really like to know if this is a possibility.

CaroLiza_fan
 
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