Beginning at the age of three, I found figure skating to be my sanctuary, a world of order and happiness made possible by the rules that encourage competition with others around the world.
Just as anything in life, there is a system in place in order to preserve justice. As with figure skating in particular, there is a set of guidelines installed which not only shape the sport itself but are also installed in order to keep order.
A link to view the entire set of guidelines written by the United States Figure Skating Association is available here : https://online.flippingbook.com/view/246963108/
In this link, you’ll be able to view the complete rulebook of figure skating outlining all the rules and regulations installed in order to maintain fairness in the sport. This rulebook specifies various different aspects such as which elements are required in a program, the maximum length of the music for the performance, the penalties in points when a skater falls, and much more. Along with this, the rulebook also specifies components outside of the performance itself such as the amount of technical specialists needed for a panel during a specific event, eligibility requirements, the permitted size for warm up groups, and so forth. It is clear that in figure skating, making sure that fairness is ensured in the sport is crucial with an extremely detailed rulebook having been created.
Just as in any community, there needs to be a governing body installed to make sure that these rules and regulations are being consistently followed. In the realm of figure skating, there is just that. The governing body in figure skating is known as the International Skating Union (commonly abbreviated as ISU). The ISU’s job is to both govern and regulate figure skating both during and out of competitions. They successfully do this by organizing international figure skating events, constantly enforcing the rules, and making sure to always work on developing the sport as the years progress.
An example of the ISU working to keep the rulebooks up to date with the current events in figure skating is the installation of the rule which reduces the maximum jump elements (jumping passes) from seven to six. The purpose of installing this rule is to make skaters less reliant on solely developing difficult jumping passes and disregarding other aspects of the performance such as spins and choreography. This rule specifically got installed after Ilia Malinin, 2025 men’s world champion, successfully completed the quad axel (an element where you rotate four and a half times in the air before landing). Ilia Malnin is currently the only figure skater to have ever successfully accomplished this jump in an international competition. As this jump is the highest base value scoring jump, many skaters are working relentlessly to develop this jump and implement it in their competition performance. But, by shifting one’s focus to solely developing this jump, many diminish the importance of spin elements and components (the artistic aspects of a skater's performance). To combat this issue, the ISU henceforth, established the new, controversial, rule. While this is simply one example which recently occurred, the ISU consistently implements new rules and regulations in order to maintain the fairness of the sport as it develops overtime.
Despite specific rule changes, there have been various instances where justice within the sport was challenged. But no matter the issue presented, the International Skating Union consistently works hard to make sure that fairness is maintained. Here, I will be discussing a few instances where justice was challenged.
- Kamila Valieva’s Doping Case at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics:
Kamila Valieva was a Russian figure skater born in Kazan and trained under the Sambo-70 school in Moscow. Here, she trained with world renowned Russian figure skating coach Eteri Tutbertidze who had trained many successful figure skaters ranging from Russian national champions, world champions, and even olympic champion. Kamila Valieva was at the height of her career having become the 2022 European Champion and 2020 World Junior Champion. At the age of 15 years old, she was an Olympic Champion contender. Ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Kamila Valieva tested positive in her doping test dated back in December 2021 where the results were just released in February 2022. Banned heart medication, trimetazidine, was located in her system. This drug in particular is banned in sports as it is categorized as a hormone and metabolic modulator and is linked to improving physical efficiency. In an endurance sport like figure skating, this drug can have significant impacts on one’s performance. This came as a shock to the entire figure skating community and major discussions were had regarding the eligibility of Kamila to compete in the Games. One argument was on the defense of her age. As a minor, 15 years old, many people came to Kamila’s defense saying that the adults around her are the ones to blame as there was reasonable doubt to her knowingly doping. Another argument was made regarding the timing of it all. Despite having a positive doping test dated back to December, Kamila had already passed doping tests taken during the time of the actual Winter Olympic Games. After a court hearing held by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was held with Kamila Valieva challenging the suspension she originally had imposed, a decision was made to lift the provisional suspension. In the end, this allowed for Kamila Valieva to compete during the Winter Olympic Games. Later on, this decision was appealed by both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Skating Union (ISU). In the end, by The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), Kamila Valieva was ruled out as violating the anti-doping rule and henceforth had her results in any international figure skating competition since December 2021 disqualified. Along with this, she was also handed a 4 year ban from the date of her negative doping test. Because of this decision by the court, Kamila Valieva had her results from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games stripped (promoting skater Wakaba Higuchi to 4th place) and her 2022 European Championship results stripped (promoting skater Anna Shcherbakova to first place). Overall, Kamila Valieva was deemed guilty of doping despite the initial decision to lift her suspension. With works of those in the ISU and IOC, justice was successfully preserved for all athletes that competed alongside her.
-Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding
Dating back to 1994, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were two American figure skaters who were always competing against one another. Both athletes came from very different backgrounds. Nancy Kerrigan was born in Massachusetts in 1969 and began figure skating at the age of 6. Both of her parents worked very hard and had to make financial sacrifices in order to support their daughter’s dream of making it far in the figure skating world. On the other hand, Tonya Harding was born in Portland in 1970 and began figure skating at the age of 3. Despite her successes in figure skating, she had many hardships with her family life with her parents being divorced and Tonya alleging to have suffered through physical and psychological abuse by her mother. With Tonya and Nancy both progressing in figure skating, they inevitably began competing against one another more often. Both of them being Olympic hopefuls, their competitive face off to secure their spot at the Winter Olympic Games arrived at the 1994 United States U.S. Figure Skating Championship. In order to secure one’s spot at the Olympic Games representing the United States, a strong performance at Nationals is crucial. That being said, the competition was very tight during 1994, with many female skaters being strong enough to earn that spot on the Olympic team. One figure skater in particular being Nancy Kerrigan. On January 6th, after Nancy Kerrigan left one of the practice sessions, she was physically assaulted with an unknown assailant hitting her lower right leg with a metal baton targeting her knee. The same knee that she lands all her jumps on. As a result, Nancy was no longer able to compete at Nationals with sustaining immense bruising and swelling in her leg. This gave Tonya Harding the advantage as one of her top competitors was eliminated. At the end of the competition, Tonya Harding won gold. However, after the attacks on Nancy, an FBI investigation was issued. In this investigation, it was discovered that the individual who directly assaulted Nancy was Shane Stant. After further investigations, it became apparent that Shane Stant performed this assault after being hired by Jeff Gillooly (Tonya Harding’s ex-husband) and Shawn Eckhardt (Tonya Harding’s bodyguard). Both Jeff and Shawn claimed that Tonya Harding was involved with this attack but she denied ever knowing what they were conspiring. However, after reaching a plea agreement, Tonya ended up admitting to her involvement that she did in fact have prior knowledge of the attack before it happened and pled guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution. As a result, both the grand jury and a disciplinary panel from the United States Figure Skating Association agreed to ban her for life in competitive figure skating and stripped her from her 1994 nationals title. On the other hand, Nancy Kerrigan was able to successfully recover from the injuries she had endured from the physical attack and became the silver medalist in the 1994 Winter Olympic Games. As for Tonya Harding, this case brought her to the end of her figure skating career.
Surya Bonaly’s Backflip
Surya Bonaly was a French figure skater who was most noted for being the second black female skater. Her figure skating career was very successful with her being a 3 time World Championship silver medalist, 5 time European Champion, and a 9 time French National Champion. During the 1998 Winter Olympics, she began experiencing immense muscle pain. So much so that prior to the freeskate performance, she had to force herself to walk up the stairs. While competing in the freeskate program at the Olympic Games, the pain only intensified. With two jumping passes left, she understood that her body wouldn’t be able to endure any more of the pain. Instead of giving up, she decided to give the audience and judges an extra special performance. At the end of her four minute routine, she threw her arms up and executed a backflip landing on a signal foot on ice. This immediately shocked everyone who watched her performance. Surya Bonaly became the first and only skater to execute a backflip landing on one foot while competing at the Olympic Games. Despite how impressive such a move is, it’s formally banned in competitions. The rule banning this element occurred after figure skater Terry Kubicka performed it at the 1976 Olympic Games (the rule was passed in 1977). Therefore, with this rule emplaced, Surya had that element in her performance nullified as it was illegal which then caused her final score to be on the lower side. Despite such an impressive move being done, order had to be maintained and at that time, the move wasn’t allowed causing her to end up in 10th place at the Winter Olympic Games.
-Russia Barred From Competing Internationally
For many years now, Russian athletes have been consistently winning in figure skating with many of their athletes having achieved world titles and even olympic titles. Especially in the women's field, Russia has always been the one to beat with their athletes normally standing at the top. For instance in 2021, the World Figure Skating Championships consisted of a clean sweep of Russian figure skaters on the podium in the women’s event. Also in the women’s event, the past three Olympic champions all represented Russia. Thus proving the amount of success Russian athletes have garnered in this sport. Not only winning high-stake competitions but also pushing the field by incorporating new elements in their routines when they compete. Alexandra Trusova is commonly credited for pioneering the increase of quadruple jumps landed in the women’s field (prior to her, quads were mostly completed in the men’s field with very few women in the whole world having landed this jump in competition). Despite all the success and the ways that Russian athletes have pushed what’s possible in this sport, they have been barred from competing in international figure skating competitions ever since March 2022, just after the Winter Olympic Games. This ban was in response to the hostility of Russia towards Ukraine which immensely increased during this time. In March, Russia invaded Ukraine which led to an enormous death toll, buildings destroyed, and many injured. This invasion shocked the world and many expressed their sympathies, sorrows, and support for Ukraine. After Russia’s invasion, the International Skating Union came to the decision to ban all Russian figure skaters from competing internationally which eliminates them from all high-stake competitions such as Grand Prixs, European Championships, World Championships, and more. From once being a country which completely dominated the sport to now having 0 athletes representing their country competing. It’s important to recognize that this ban wasn’t done to eliminate the top competitors, but to instead stand in solidarity of those suffering in Ukraine and to express their disapproval of Russia’s foreign actions. Along with this, there have been other instances where solidarity towards Ukraine has been maintained. For example, Viktor Petrenko was an Olympic Champion in the 1992 Winter Games and was removed from the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation. This is because of his participation in a Russian ice show after the invasion had occurred. As of 2025, Russia is still barred from competing with no indication of them being allowed back into competitive figure skating anytime soon.
-Carolina Kostner Doping Ban
Carolina Kostner is a female figure skater representing Italy. Throughout her career, she managed to amass a bronze medal in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, gold medal in the 2012 World Championships, and 5 European Championship titles. She is also credited for being the second oldest women’s figure skating medalist since 1928 for her bronze medal in the Olympic Games in Sochi. Back in 2012, Carolina Kostner was dating male race walker Alex Schwazer who also represented Italy. During this time, Alex was involved in a doping case where he was tested positive for EPO (a blood boosting hormone). This positive test led him to being banned from competing in the 2012 London Olympic Games. However, prior to the results, Carolina Kostner had lied to drug testers who were looking for him to complete a drug test. As the drug testers appeared at Carolina’s door looking for him, she told him that he wasn’t there. Eventually, Carolina admitted that she lied to the drug testers at this moment and Alex was in fact in her house. But, she insisted that she was completely unaware that he was actively using performance enhancing drugs and that she had no involvement. Since she misled anti-doping officials, ultimately aiding her then boyfriend to dope, Carolina was given a 16 month ban from competing in figure skating. This ban was given to her in 2012 meaning that she would be missing a full season of competitive figure skating. Her response to this court ruling was to appeal the 16 month ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2015. The Italian Olympic Committee also got involved as they filed an appeal seeking for an extension to the ban by 2 more years. In the end, Carolina, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and the Italian Olympic Committee settled the dispute and Carolina was given a 5 month extension on her ban. Overall, Carolina had to endure a full 21 month ban from competitive figure skating all because of her failure to comply and tell the truth of Alex’s whereabouts when confronted by anti-doping officials.