"They want to make my case illustrative": Harutyunyan was stripped of his accreditation at Skate Canada under a strange pretext

Three-time world champion Nathan Chen, leading Skate Canada after completing the short program, will continue to compete in this tournament without a coach.

Rafael Harutyunyan was stripped of his accreditation for allegedly violating the boundaries of the "clean" zone.

According to the well-known expert, the organizers of the tournament forgot to mark the boundaries of the "bubble", which they admitted themselves, but instead of apologizing to the coach, they decided to make the punishment demonstratively harsh.

Immediately after the incident, Harutyunyan told an RT correspondent about this in a telephone conversation.

- How did it happen?

- Usually I leave the rink immediately after the performances of my athletes, but then I was late - Igor Shpilband asked me to watch the performance of one of his dancing couples and make comments. He also explained to me how to get to the podium: I myself did not know this, since I had never climbed there. He walked, very carefully examining the signs - nevertheless now they are informed how strict in this respect the requirements are imposed on everyone who is in the "bubble". There were no signs on the sides or on the walls. Accordingly, I reached the place where a television camera was installed near the ice, walked a little along the side to the other side, so as not to interfere with the operator, climbed a few steps up and sat down on the podium.

He sat, as expected, in a mask, no one was next to me.

Some people were sitting on the podium, but they were all quite far away.

When the couples finished skating, I headed down the same way.

At that moment, a representative of the organizing committee approached me and asked me to follow him.

Then they told me that I had violated the boundaries of the bubble.

- Are you sure that there were no prohibition signs on your way?

- I'm not just sure, the organizers have confirmed it themselves.

When I began to explain to them that I had not seen the prohibitive markup, they said: they say, yes, they know that there was no markup, but now it has already been done - just so that this situation does not happen again.

And that they want to make my case indicative - for the edification of others.

At first I didn't even understand.

He even asked again: “It turns out that instead of apologizing to me and my athlete, you are now making me feel guilty so that there is someone to blame for your own oversight?”

- It turns out that way.

- That's what I'm talking about.

Indeed, in fact, the organizing committee simply did not fulfill its professional work.

I didn’t mark signs, didn’t put up a fence, didn’t put the duty officer in the place where there is a possibility of people leaving the boundaries of the "clean" zone.

And the ISU did not control it properly.

In fact, I was much more outraged by something else: well, okay, I broke the rules, I was punished for it.

But on a purely human level, you will at least apologize for what happened!

- Have you tried to contact the representatives of the international federation?

- The parsing was attended by the representative of ISU Wieland Luders, who is responsible for the organization in Vancouver.

He immediately began talking to me in extremely raised tones, despite the fact that I am twice as old as he is.

In his presence, my accreditation was withdrawn, announcing that from now on I was dangerous to all those who remained in the "bubble", then they put me in a car and sent me to another hotel.

Fortunately, the American Federation immediately got involved in solving the problem and gave me a room in the same hotel, but in a different wing.

- Now, it turns out that you are generally deprived of the opportunity to be present at the rink?

- Only as a spectator.

I am calm for Nathan: he immediately told me not to worry about him.

And that I can leave Vancouver earlier if I see fit.

But I will of course stay.

We will ride by correspondence.

- I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on a great start to the tournament: 106.72 points for Chen in the short program - an outstanding result.

- We still removed the quadruple flip from the program, replacing it with a sheepskin coat.

And everything immediately fell into place.

Relatively speaking, the sheepskin coat allows you to dance in the program, and the flip is too heavy an element.

In addition, it goes at the end of the program, it is performed on the same foot as the lutz, and it is really too hard physically.

And when an athlete feels that a certain percentage of a possible breakdown was initially included in the program, it also puts a heavy load on the head.

Just few people understand this.