Alexander Majorov out of the Olympics

[TMC]

Im sorry but can these "mostly middle-aged men" count? I really want to hear their mental gymnastics for why there are 30(?) entries if it is selfish to compete with no chance of getting a medal... gee, lots of selfishness... how can you enjoy the sport at all? I mean... would they really rather a cap of like 5 skaters at the Olympics? I just don't get it.

I also don't get the idea that you can only bring glory to your country with a medal...ummm no. Brendan Kerry was last and I suspect many an Aussie would proudly say he brought glory to their country.



Honestly I find this attitude incredibly arrogant. No one is "too good" to be last at the bloody Olympics. Seems strange that selfishness is being used as the defense of something that screams of massive ego to me.

I don’t know. Sheesh. These are the same guys who think poor people are poor due to their own lack of character and all immigrants are criminals except the white ones? I don’t believe these things. Don’t shoot the messenger

 

[Blades of Passion]

This is so awful and should never be happening.

 

[StitchMonkey]

I don’t know. Sheesh. These are the same guys who think poor people are poor due to their own lack of character and all immigrants are criminals except the white ones? I don’t believe these things. Don’t shoot the messenger

Ohh i was not trying to shoot the messenger... I was just wondering if you had ever poked the hornets nest for some craziness.

 

[Mathman]

For those interested in seeing a petition about this, please go to page 4 of the Majorov fan fest thread, posted by EVAMARIA.

https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?53094-Alexander-Majorov/page4

 

[Miss Ice]

The case of Tamar Katz is sad because she never got to compete at the Olympics. With Majorov, it's slightly different because he WAS allowed to compete in Sochi as a developmental skater, even though he wasn't a contender for top placements. If Sweden chooses to have tougher requirements for a second trip, they have the right to do so.

I believe Sweden has been quite generous with Majorov. They could have decided not to allow him to represent Sweden at all after his awful comments.
https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/s...federation-on-Facebook-(and-later-apologizes)

Wow, people shouldo read these comments. He should consider himself lucky to be skating for Sweden at all.

 

[TontoK]

Wow, people shouldo read these comments. He should consider himself lucky to be skating for Sweden at all.

I'm not defending what he said... but I think the racial slur was probably a random incendiary English curse word more than anything else. I don't know for a fact - and someone will correct me if I'm wrong - but I doubt there are many black people on the Swedish figure skating federation. This is not to excuse his use of the word - more to reflect that he probably didn't fully understand what it meant.

In any event, it was exceedingly unwise - I'm glad that he apologized for it.

Now, should he consider himself lucky to compete for Sweden? I don't know, but this all happened something like seven years ago - and that is longer than nearly all doping bans.

So we're saying that an unwise youthful outburst is worse than three two-year doping bans, stacked on top of each other?

I'm not sure I'm behind that.

I personally wish he were competing, because he earned his place. But the final decision is up to Sweden's NOC.

 

[Tonichelle]

is there an article about this whole fiasco?

 

[Lamente Ariane]

Yeah, not the same country but I've heard from relatives that there's an unfortunate strain of "hipster racism" among young people in Iceland who use offensive phrases and imagery (such as swastikas) that they don't understand the weight of. It's horrible and absolutely deserves pushback, but he did apologize and I don't think it has a lot of bearing on the current situation.

 

[Skater Boy]

This is outrageous! Alexander earned that spot fair and square! The Swedish Olympic Committee has no right to take it away. He should take his case to the IOC!
Wel
If it was me, I'd try to get into the Neutral Team!

Well the challenge is if a nation has qualified a spot or spots for the olympics it is up to their own federation to decide who to send who has met the qualifications and if they send anyone at all. I can't remember what I read about Emmanual Sandu and what happened to him. But we have seen things were ie a few years ago Kostner lost the national title and there was only one Italian woman spot andshe got to go. To be honest I feel bad for Majorov but we should not assume it was or is his spot. I don't agree with Sweden's approach but it isn't up to me. It is kind of sad. Majorov is in a difficult spot to earn an olympic spot tech minimums. Then you have shirtless boy wonder from Tonga or wherever just playing games so to speak to get to the olympics. He is in sports and a nation where it is far easier to get to the olympics. It is a nice story for shirtless boy and his prize is going to the olympics but I do feel bad for Majorov.

 

[anonymoose_au]

Well the challenge is if a nation has qualified a spot or spots for the olympics it is up to their own federation to decide who to send who has met the qualifications and if they send anyone at all. I can't remember what I read about Emmanual Sandu and what happened to him. But we have seen things were ie a few years ago Kostner lost the national title and there was only one Italian woman spot andshe got to go. To be honest I feel bad for Majorov but we should not assume it was or is his spot. I don't agree with Sweden's approach but it isn't up to me. It is kind of sad. Majorov is in a difficult spot to earn an olympic spot tech minimums.

Well, you've got a point there...but it's not like Sweden has a better skater to send in which case they might have an argument, but they set him an impossible standard (like 20 points higher than any score he's ever gotten!) that doesn't really motivate. Also I thought you couldn't compare figure skating scores from year to year, in which case why has the Swedish Olympic Committee just arbitarly picked a score from last year's Worlds?

Plus the whole idea of only sending 'medal contenders' just rubs the wrong way...the Olympics is meant to be inclusive, there's only three medals up for grabs, if everyone operated like the Swedish Committee there'd hardly be anyone at the Games!

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Sweden:48/106 ( ~50%) of the athlets medalled at the 2014 OG...

For a country that only sends medal hopefuls you'd think that number would be higher. And many of those are from team events.

Shouldn't Sweden forbid them from competing in individual events if they're not going to medal in those and only have them compete in the team events where there is a medal chance? Imagine the outrage by the athletes. It would be like preventing Scimeca/Knierim or the Japanese pair/ice dance teams from doing individual pairs because they could only realistically medal in team.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Well, you've got a point there...but it's not like Sweden has a better skater to send in which case they might have an argument, but they set him an impossible standard (like 20 points higher than any score he's ever gotten!) that doesn't really motivate. Also I thought you couldn't compare figure skating scores from year to year, in which case why has the Swedish Olympic Committee just arbitarly picked a score from last year's Worlds?

Plus the whole idea of only sending 'medal contenders' just rubs the wrong way...the Olympics is meant to be inclusive, there's only three medals up for grabs, if everyone operated like the Swedish Committee there'd hardly be anyone at the Games!

Totally agree with everything you said.

But, I should point out again that the target was not "20 points higher than any score he's ever gotten!" It was 11.44 points higher, because he scored 246.56 at last season's Universiade.

I really wish the ISU would sort out their record system. Because it makes things confusing, not to mention misleading, when a Senior B counts towards your PB, but a Major multi-sport event doesn't.

(And before somebody chimes in, I know that the reason the Universiade doesn't count towards ISU PB's is because the entry is restricted to particular people, i.e. students. But, that doesn't mean I have to agree with that stance!)

CaroLiza_fan

 

[treeloving]

I don't understand with this kind of mindset they should not send him to European and world too. If they have limited budget olympic should be prioritized instead of European or nebelhorn. And if I understand correctly, they fid send Helgesson which is much less competitive in international level than Majorov.

 

[NanaPat]

I don't understand with this kind of mindset they should not send him to European and world too. If they have limited budget olympic should be prioritized instead of European or nebelhorn. And if I understand correctly, they fid send Helgesson which is much less competitive in international level than Majorov.

It's two different organizations: the national skating federation decides (and funds?) Europeans and Worlds entries, but the national Olympic organizing committee decides (and funds?) Olympic entries.

At one time the Canadian Olympic committee didn't send all athletes recommended by the various sports federations: they only sent them if they had a realistic expectation of placing in the top half. I don't think that's true any more because I think they sent a figure skater in men's in 2014 who didn't have that reasonable expectation. But the Olympic committee does what the Olympic committee does, and nobody can tell them what to do.

Also, it's been explained that Sweden has different (higher) standards for a second Olympics than for a first one, so you have to take that into account when comparing athletes.

 

[eaglehelang]

I don't understand with this kind of mindset they should not send him to European and world too. If they have limited budget olympic should be prioritized instead of European or nebelhorn. And if I understand correctly, they fid send Helgesson which is much less competitive in international level than Majorov.

Funding should NOT be an issue for a country like Sweden. If the NOC dont want fund the trip then just ask Majarov to raise his own funds. Have a gofund me or something.

This is what we did, 3rd world non skating countries. We would have raised hell if our NOC or government even dared to mention not sending an athlete who qualified on his own merit, using his own money/sponsors money.
Malaysia built a 2nd skating rink just for last year 2017 Southeast Asia games. Just because of Julian Yee.
Few years ago interest started, just cos Julian qualified for World Juniors, which surprised everybody. Then heightened cos he had big chance of actually qualifying for 2018 OG.

Who knows, in another 10, 15, 20 years we'll have a top 10 ranking skater.
If China had stopped when Yao Bin got last in pairs, they would not have had Shen/Zhou's OG gold

 

[Alegria]

One other problem with this decision i that Sweden sent Majorov to earn the spot. Then they confirmed it all the way till now. So it's totally unfair for those, who participated in Nebelhorn and those, who were waiting for an available spot.

 

[Arpakasso]

I'm new, but I really have an opinion on this. And it might not be that popular.

A lot of People are saying that a rich Country like sweden shouldn't be stingy with their funds. Yeah, well. Part of the reason those countries ARE rich is basically because they are always stingy with their funds.

The other reasiong is: in a Country that provides a lot of funding so everyone can participate in sports, giving away big funds to individual athletes needs to be carefully reasoned. it is, after all, Money that is NOT available to the public. And even if a Country is rich (in comparison), those harsh discussions on what you actually spend your money on are what keeps the money from being spent on useless things as well. This is what transparency is about: Setting Standards and keeping to them.

I think it's seriously debatable whether a requirement of being in the TOP 8 is reasonable, yes. But looking at German sports, and how utterly underfunded it is (except Soccer...), in EVERY direction... well. We send People to the olympics, but seriously, since so many sports are underfunded there are less and less Kids that can focus on sports in their youth. Most drop out, because their parents cant fund the sports education, or because even if their parents can fund it, your chances of making a living out of sports as an adult are so slim. so at some Point most families prioritize formal education before sports. doing both is nearly impossible.

Money that's being spent on one olympic athlete COULD actually be used to at least fund a few more Kids into doing what they like. that's why the General public is pretty accepting of those practices, in my opinion.

The other part is: The Olympic Games have suffered HEAVILY in the public eye from all the scandal, most of all from Doping, but also because of all the other corruption going on.

in Germany, no City wants to apply as a venue for olympics anymore. too expensieve, it's seen as something authoritarian governments fund in order to make their public appearance look nice while they suppress their own People. participation in olympic games is something that is regarded as condoning that System of corruption and Doping, indirectly supporting it. boycott has been talked about again and again. the IOC decision on russia was mostly called "too lax" in our media.The national olympic committees have to constantly defend their stance in these countries, since they are "part" of the corrupt olympic System. any Money they spend is under scutiny!

For the althetes and those People who love to follow sports, the olympics are great. but the General public that is only superficially interested doesn't see what all the fuzz is about. having less participants at olympic games is not something that the General public sees as shameful, I think. also, as long as the prominent sports in a Country are represented, nobody actually notices that there might have been a spot for an athlete in a less well-known Sport. those niche-sports only get noticed whan someone earns a medal. and even then, it's one line in the evening News, but People forget about it fast.

I also think that this decision is sad for Majorov nad the swedish NOC could easily have decided differently. but to the General public in sweden, this is probably not something that will be regarded as shameful. so the decision will probably stand...

(i apologize for the wonky capitals, my browser autocorrects this according to German rules and I can't turn it off...)

 

[mikeko666]

If Sweden thinks Olympics have become too commercial and political, filled with scandals (IOC just banned a bunch of Russian athletes from competing in Pyeongchang with little explanation), and is no longer worth investing, why don't they just boycott the games as a country? Why don't they just dissolve their Olympic committee? Why do they give their athlete an unrealistic goal and false hope?

 

[Miss Ice]

I'm not defending what he said... but I think the racial slur was probably a random incendiary English curse word more than anything else. I don't know for a fact - and someone will correct me if I'm wrong - but I doubt there are many black people on the Swedish figure skating federation. This is not to excuse his use of the word - more to reflect that he probably didn't fully understand what it meant.

In any event, it was exceedingly unwise - I'm glad that he apologized for it.

Now, should he consider himself lucky to compete for Sweden? I don't know, but this all happened something like seven years ago - and that is longer than nearly all doping bans.

So we're saying that an unwise youthful outburst is worse than three two-year doping bans, stacked on top of each other?

I'm not sure I'm behind that.

I personally wish he were competing, because he earned his place. But the final decision is up to Sweden's NOC.

He was 20-21 years old when he said that. It is unexcusable behavior for an adult athlete. It truly shows what kind of character he is and it's disgusting. It's a wonder they let him go to Sochi after that, especially since Sweden isn't even his original country...

 

[eaglehelang]

I'm new, but I really have an opinion on this. And it might not be that popular.

A lot of People are saying that a rich Country like sweden shouldn't be stingy with their funds. Yeah, well. Part of the reason those countries ARE rich is basically because they are always stingy with their funds.

The other reasiong is: in a Country that provides a lot of funding so everyone can participate in sports, giving away big funds to individual athletes needs to be carefully reasoned. it is, after all, Money that is NOT available to the public. And even if a Country is rich (in comparison), those harsh discussions on what you actually spend your money on are what keeps the money from being spent on useless things as well. This is what transparency is about: Setting Standards and keeping to them.

I think it's seriously debatable whether a requirement of being in the TOP 8 is reasonable, yes. But looking at German sports, and how utterly underfunded it is (except Soccer...), in EVERY direction... well. We send People to the olympics, but seriously, since so many sports are underfunded there are less and less Kids that can focus on sports in their youth. Most drop out, because their parents cant fund the sports education, or because even if their parents can fund it, your chances of making a living out of sports as an adult are so slim. so at some Point most families prioritize formal education before sports. doing both is nearly impossible.

Money that's being spent on one olympic athlete COULD actually be used to at least fund a few more Kids into doing what they like. that's why the General public is pretty accepting of those practices, in my opinion.

On the issue of funding, the NOC, goverment or whoever powers that be can stipulate that the athletes pay their way for qualifying tournaments, training,etc. Like those of us from non rich, 3rd world non skating countries. Figure skating (rather all Winter sports) is not funded cos nobody ever qualified before, till this year.
Government funding is only for medal contender sports in Summer Olympics.

If Sweden wanted so high standards or problem with funds, then ask Majorov to find his own sponsors. Then he can set up a donation drive or whatever. Why bother spending money to send a skater to qualifying events then? Better stay home and dont go at all, cos the message they're sending is 'DONT get involved in sports'

So, funding is not an excuse for not sending, just sign on the dotted line