If I see fewer quadsters from this rule so be it. Quads are great when performed by technically capable legal adults. Anything else is very risky and inviting trouble and severe injury on children.
You can whine and complain all you want, but I doubt TPTB are going to go backwards and change the age requirements. The ISU and the IOC don't want another debacle like at the last Olympics. Time to move on.
Even if the skater at the centre of it was 19 rather than 15 it wouldn't have changed anything regarding the team event or medals, and I suspect CAS would have let a 19 year old in the same circumstances perform for the reasons c) and d).
2) On the basis of the very limited facts of this case, and after consideration of the relevant legal
issues, it has determined that no provisional suspension should be imposed on the Athlete due
to the following exceptional circumstances:
a) The Athlete is a “Protected Person” under the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC);
b) The RUSADA Anti-Doping Rules and the WADC are silent with respect to provisional
suspension imposed on protected persons, while these rules have specific provisions for
different standards of evidence and for lower sanctions in the case of protected persons;
c) The Panel considered fundamental principles of fairness, proportionality, irreparable harm,
and the relative balance of interests as between the Applicants and the Athlete, who did not
test positive during the Olympic Games in Beijing and is still subject to a disciplinary
procedure on the merits following the positive anti-doping test undertaken in December
2021; in particular, the Panel considered that preventing the Athlete from competing at the
Olympic Games would cause her irreparable harm in these circumstances;
d) The CAS Panel also emphasized that there were serious issues of untimely notification of
the results of the Athlete’s anti-doping test that was performed in December 2021 which
impinged upon the Athlete’s ability to establish certain legal requirements for her benefit,
while such late notification was not her fault, in the middle of the Olympic Winter Games
Beijing 2022.
The entire circumstances around this was so strange, just the delays in testing, delays in notifying the athlete, timing of waiting until the completion of the team event, it wasn't a positive sample from the actual event itself, age of the athlete, the athlete was the gold medal favourite, it was such a perfect storm that would never happen again in the history of the Olympics or any major event, that to rearrange age rules to avoid this happening again would be so bizarre. It would easier to just have some kind of contingency plan in place for the lab to test samples within the 20 day limit.
The age limit was increased ostensibly to lessen injuries, but the fact they allowed 15 and 16 year olds to put their short and long term mental and physical health at great risk for a further two seasons makes me skeptical about the true motivations.
I think its was more about levelling the playing field since it's harder for girls 17 and over to jump quads compared to 15 and 16 year olds. It's a little like motor racing if one team starts to dominate they might make illegal some of the aerodynamic innovations the leading team has in order to bring the field closer together to improve the show.
My personal opinion is that senior competitions should be only for skaters older than 18. I would also ban the broadcasting of junior events so that these children aren't glorified by the public, aren't encouraged to take unnecessary risks, to protect them from the scourge of cyberbullies in this sport.
), or two poor kids, or three poor kids, doesn't support bupkis. The fact that they have incompetent coaching or overboard parenting isn't the ISU's fault.
