entire ISU competition structure? | Golden Skate

entire ISU competition structure?

Arwen17

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 20, 2017
Do we have a map of the entire ISU competition structure anywhere?
I understand USFSA's structure pretty well. But I am still confused by how ISU works.
I started wondering about it more when the girl from India and other countries like that are competing on the Junior Grand Prix this year. (First time I've started to watch stuff other than the Olympics and random programs of my favorite skaters.) Can they just sign up if their country submits them? Are there ZERO requirements other than your country sending you to the event to represent them?
Wikipedia said you have to place at World Junior Championships to go to JGP?

I know countries can win "spots" 1-3 based on how they place. At the moment, it's showing just Russia and Japan for 3 spots on the senior ladies circuit. Is it possible for there to 3 spots for more than 2 countries, (aka Japan, USA, Russia, Canada, etc) or will it always be limited to only TWO countries that get 3 spots each?

Let's say you're a new country, and you've got some skaters you want to send to international competitions. What is the entry point into ISU's system? How do you progress thru the ISU system? What event leads to what event? Maps welcome.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012

cl2

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Let's say you're a new country, and you've got some skaters you want to send to international competitions. What is the entry point into ISU's system? How do you progress thru the ISU system? What event leads to what event? Maps welcome.

The entry point is to have ISU recognize the country's governing body. One criteria for that to happen is that the country must have at least one full sized ice rink. (Not sure if Olympic size is required, or a hockey size is OK.)

Up until a few years ago, Singapore Ice Skating Association had provisional membership with ISU, pending a full sized rink, which it eventually got. Now you see some Singaporean skaters on the JGP circuit.
 

Nirti

Medalist
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
The ice-rink can be a seasonal ice rink too, that's what happened to Greece when the only ice rink closed in Athens, then they had only an artificial ice rink during the winter season.

Some years ago Grenada got the provisional member status. The federation was created by the uncle of an US girl with grenadian roots, she took part at the Junior Worlds in 2012 (there were no TES required at this time) and the federation became inactive when she retired. Then the fed was excluded for inactivity by ISU.

I've found some words about it in this article :

"Then, seeing a truck bearing an incongruous ski federation logo, Edwin revealed how he’d once tried to register the Grenada Figure Skating Association: “My niece, who lives in New York, wanted to compete for the island. But one stipulation was that we had to build an ice rink here.” I could envisage the Hollywood movie that had almost happened."

I would think only a provisional rink was built (not sure if we can talk about a winter season in Grenada :biggrin:), cause I can't find any information about it today (which is not easy to find because there's a Grenada in Minnesota and of course Granada in Spain)

India has only one recreational rink without olympic dimensions, which explains the lack of progression of indian skating.



So to answer to the question about ISU, once you are an ISU member (olympic member country with a figure skating or ice sports federation + something that is more or less an ice rink) you have the right to send skaters to ISU recognized events (Challengers Series, "classical" international competitions like Dragon Trophy in Slovenia, Philadelphia Summer Cup...) without other requirements.
For ISU Junior Grand Prix, the only requirement is to respect the number of quotas a country got during the last Junior Worlds. If a country didn't not send a skater in a category at these last JW, the minimum quota number is automatically 2.

To enter ISU competitions (Europeans, 4 Continents, Worlds, Junior Worlds), each ISU member has the right to send between 1 and 3 skaters (depending on the competition and the results from the previous year), which MUST meet the technical requirements (see this post pinned on "the Edge" part of the forum)

To enter ISU grand prix, it's more complicated as each of the 6 organisators has the right to chose the participants, based on many criterias.

What is maybe hard to understand is that even if Grand Prix and Junior Grand Prix sounds similar, they function completely differently, except for the qualification to the final!
 
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