Coronavirus and the new season
- Thread starter chuckm
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if the skaters can start on ice trainings everywhere!
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- Oct 23, 2017
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As we were talking about various parts of Canada a few days ago - it looks like it's going to be at least another ten days before Ontario skaters are back on the ice. While some outdoor sports are being allowed to go ahead, the province has just extended all existing Emergency Orders that are currently in force until 29 May. That includes the Closure of Establishments Order, which states that "All facilities providing indoor recreational programs" are ordered to be closed.
The border with the US will also remain closed to all but essential travel for another month.
Probably a good decision; Ontario's averaged new case rate has been dropping steadily but slowly, and another fortnight or so would be very useful to consolidate that trend and decrease community transmission a bit further.
The border with the US will also remain closed to all but essential travel for another month.
Probably a good decision; Ontario's averaged new case rate has been dropping steadily but slowly, and another fortnight or so would be very useful to consolidate that trend and decrease community transmission a bit further.
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- Oct 23, 2017
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Interesting! Sorry for the self-quote, but it's easier to do that than edit the old post.
There has been an update to this situation. The Closure of Establishments Order has been amended as follows:
And among the facilities listed in Schedule 2: Essential Businesses to Ontario Regulation 82/20 (Order under Subsection 7.0.2 (4) — Closure of Places of Non-Essential Businesses are:
Given that Skate Ontario has the provincial government logo on its home page under 'partners', it clearly fulfils Item ii in this list at minimum.
Section 8 of Schedule 3 of the Order states that facilities for athletic training or competitions are in compliance when:
That looks like the kind of information Skate Ontario was waiting on to finalise its Return to Sport guidelines, so Ontario skaters (singles skaters at least) may be back on the ice before May 29 after all! Though I still think before the end of the week is unlikely given they need to get the documentation finalised and signed off on and communicated to all clubs for them to then put in place.
(Sorry for the lengthy geeking out, I just find how different places are dealing with this stuff in legal terms rather fascinating...)
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I hardly believe the Russians can open the ice rinks from 1 of June. 8764 new cases yesterday: 2699 in Moscow!
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- Dec 4, 2004
The US and Canada have jointly decided to keep the border closed till June 21st, with the option of extending the order. This has to be for now. And international travel just can not happen. Too many other countries are blowing up and while this is not a polictical forum, I will say that there is strong evidence that certain other countries are fibbing greatly about their true numbers. More than anything else, the extended bans on international travel will effect international figure skating if they last into the fall. There IS an way out for the grand prix circuit, but no one will take may advice (probably wise) Take all the coaches and skaters and judges and whatever and send them to ONE PLACE for quaranteen for two weeks...somewhere with lots of rinks...and do all the GPs there. Once a skater has done their GPs, they can leave. Very expensive, yes, but very lucrative for the city to host all the events. I have some other tweeks in mind (you dont need a week between GPs, for instance) but it COULD work without fans and maybe with.
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- Oct 23, 2017
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NRL Island lives again!
Sorry, readers of the Guardian's Australia Coronavirus liveblog will recognise the reference. It's a theoretically workable plan, but one issue that would make it harder is that many countries aren't letting their citizens leave except for essential travel (medical aid or access to medical treatment, disaster relief etc) any more than they're letting citizens of other countries in.
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- May 21, 2020
Question is not when season will start but when skaters will start to skate on the ice.
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- Sep 1, 2015
Absolutely. Skaters will need to have been trained and ready by the season starts, they will need about 3 months, or bare minimum of 2 - although that might be pressing. They have been completely off ice for a couple of months, it will take more time to get back into the swing just to begin with.
With the two dominant nations - Russia and US being heavily affected and problems still rampant, it is absolutely crucial that things gets under controll in these countries and their athletes get back to training, otherwise it will be difficult to get the season started.
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- Mar 16, 2019
I think another fact would be that competitions require travel. Traveling right now is not safe, so without a vaccine there still would be a need for testing and quarantine prior to accessing ice/public spaces in another country. I’m not sure how it could be done at this point, so I’m not too hopeful for any competition unless a vaccine is ready.
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The lack of on ice training affects them all - okay, to varying degrees - so I don't see it as as big a drawback as the travel bans. Sure, it may mean a general lowering of standards for a season or two but a lot of skaters have had to deal with shorter lead in times when injured and have lived with it (and the ISU can point out that 2018 gold and silver Olympic medals went to skaters whose on ice training was unbelievably limited, so it isn't - quite - impossible).
The travel bans are going to be a much bigger problem.
Edited PS - I just saw a on the news that one country - Greece - is opening to tourists from June with restrictions, but the list of approved countries is not encouraging what it means for our sport with other countries. The US, Canada and Russia are not on the list (interestingly, Japan and China are).
The travel bans are going to be a much bigger problem.
Edited PS - I just saw a on the news that one country - Greece - is opening to tourists from June with restrictions, but the list of approved countries is not encouraging what it means for our sport with other countries. The US, Canada and Russia are not on the list (interestingly, Japan and China are).
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- Dec 18, 2014
From what i've heard (cause i go to vacation in Greece and Cyprus
), you can entry the country only with a negative corona test... And the 'rules' are being 'relaxed' for some countries as for example Balkan and Central Europeans ones (where i belong ) in which the frequency of corona cases is minimal these days...
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- Oct 23, 2017
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Here's a recording of Skate Ontario's first online Town Hall meeting to pass on information about Stage 1 of the Return to Sport process in their area, if anyone's interested. It's a really quite interesting peek at what legal, logistical and other issues have to be managed 'behind the scenes' before even a single skater can set blade to ice under the aegis of Skate Ontario.
Among other things, since Stage 1 has been clarified by the provincial government as meaning a return to training for 'high performance athletes only', they have to establish a precise definition of what 'high performance' means in the case of skating and where the cut-off boundary is!**
They're aiming to have their protocols signed off and to clubs by early next week. Got to appreciate the Canadian virtues of thoroughness and co-operation!
ETA: Oh, and they did clarify: no pairs or dance training that involves contact between skaters is legally permitted during Stage 1.
**ETA2: It's been defined as Novice/Junior/Senior skaters in singles, pairs and dance (without contact between partners) and Junior/Senior in synchro (again, with no contact between skaters).
Among other things, since Stage 1 has been clarified by the provincial government as meaning a return to training for 'high performance athletes only', they have to establish a precise definition of what 'high performance' means in the case of skating and where the cut-off boundary is!**
They're aiming to have their protocols signed off and to clubs by early next week. Got to appreciate the Canadian virtues of thoroughness and co-operation!
ETA: Oh, and they did clarify: no pairs or dance training that involves contact between skaters is legally permitted during Stage 1.
**ETA2: It's been defined as Novice/Junior/Senior skaters in singles, pairs and dance (without contact between partners) and Junior/Senior in synchro (again, with no contact between skaters).
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NRL Island lives again!
Very mad at Channel 9 right now. And the NRL. Anyway.
I don't think Skating Island is viable. If we're talking two weeks quarantine at the start, two weeks whenever the skaters go home, and six weeks in the middle for six GPs...if you got assigned the first and last event, you'd be stuck in quarantine or in the bubble for 10 weeks. That's a lot of ask. Not to mention the judges, as a lot of them overlap.
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Not to mention there are bunch of other logistical issues to be solved. Who's going to host/feed/clean up after the skaters, coaches, team doctors etc for the length of the competition, and who'll pay for them - remembering that host federations cover GP skaters' costs including transport too. Who's going to run, clean and sanitise the rinks? What about the film crew/s, who won't be able to work on any other jobs while the competition is running and so stand to lose income? What about the drug testers - will their objectivity be compromised if they can't be completely separated from the skaters for the whole competition period and what would it do to their wellbeing to be kept in even stricter isolation within a bubble? What about federation reps and the fact that judges are volunteers? What about those skaters who are minors and still in school?
It's theoretically viable, but I agree, once you dig into the details it's a lot less so practically. At least when the NRL was floating its island scheme it was talking about players who were adults!
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- Jan 1, 2013
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Bingo. I think a lot of people forget that the officials in skating are all volunteers. While a chunk of them are retired, there are plenty that still just use their leave to go to comps. But 10 weeks - I doubt anybody is going to get 10 weeks paid leave to go judge.
And as always - who pays?
My boys would have been fine on NRL Island (well, most of them - I suspect the captain would have been keeping a stern eye on some of the lads). It was the proximity of the idiots on the other teams I was concerned about!
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- Sep 1, 2015
Yes Italy opens its border on 3rd of June, most major airports (including Bergamo, which is one of the key international hubs for Milan) will reopen and the flights to and from other countries will resume, without quarantine. They started easing the measure for three weeks and things are proceeding pretty steady, so here's hoping that it will continue.
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- Feb 13, 2018
Here's a recording of Skate Ontario's first online Town Hall meeting to pass on information about Stage 1 of the Return to Sport process in their area, if anyone's interested. It's a really quite interesting peek at what legal, logistical and other issues have to be managed 'behind the scenes' before even a single skater can set blade to ice under the aegis of Skate Ontario.
Among other things, since Stage 1 has been clarified by the provincial government as meaning a return to training for 'high performance athletes only', they have to establish a precise definition of what 'high performance' means in the case of skating and where the cut-off boundary is!
They're aiming to have their protocols signed off and to clubs by early next week. Got to appreciate the Canadian virtues of thoroughness and co-operation!
ETA: Oh, and they did clarify: no pairs or dance training that involves contact between skaters is legally permitted during Stage 1.
I'm not going to lie, its kind of crazy to me that Ontario is opening up with 200 new cases a day, when British Columbia, Canada's third largest province, only had 12 new cases yesterday. Ontario is bigger than BC but not by THAT much. I know everyone wants to open up but it's crazy how 2 different parts of the same country were affected so differently
