“I want common sense to prevail”: Kogan on ISU bias and the problem of physical abuse by coaches

- I'll start with a burning one: how big is the prospect for Russian skaters to return to the international level, and does it depend at least to some extent on the actions of the FFKKR?

- I think that the situation, if it changes in this direction, will be in sports in general, and not in some individual federations.

After all, even now it is clear that, with the exception of a couple of other sports, no global changes are taking place.

Much will depend on the position of the International Olympic Committee on this issue.

After all, most international federations receive significant amounts from the IOC, some presidents of international federations are members of the organization or other bodies associated with it and for these reasons do not want to enter into conflict.

To a large extent, this also depends on the "independence" of the leaders of the international federations and their ability to defend their point of view.

- But you can look at the situations mentioned as a precedent: the international judo federation did not support the sanctions, there is a great chance that Russian athletes will be admitted to the world championship in wrestling, in tennis, in the NHL they are very concerned not to lose Russian players, and It seems to me that such shifts can begin, first of all, where the show suffers without a Russian representation.

That is, business.

And figure skating is more than a topic here.

- The number of views of the latest world championships, both adult and junior, in our sport really really fell, moreover, many began to talk about it.

The ISU's financial losses were discussed at the recent Congress, and I think they may increase compared to the current forecasts for the next three years.

Television, as you correctly said, needs shows where there are serious athletes, serious rivalry, and I myself heard from representatives of a number of large national federations that they were not interested in the last World Championships, despite the fact that their athletes won some medals there.

There was no most competitive idea.

Therefore, I would like to hope that common sense will prevail in the new leadership of the ISU.

It is no coincidence that we were suddenly very actively asked to send at least some of our skaters to other countries.

This became especially relevant against the background of the decision to raise the age limit.

For large countries, this measure will not hit hard.

But for small ones, yes.

Unfortunately, such proposals, which are not very well thought out in terms of consequences, come from those countries where there are many judges, many functionaries, but figure skaters can be counted on the fingers.

And as a result, representatives of these countries began to simply replace one of the main ideas of sports: they were not puzzled by developing the sport in their country, working for athletes and for them, but coming up with some abstract deeds and projects that would allow them to remain as if involved in the process and be visible.

- Don't you think that we are all now going through a time when priorities in sports are very actively changing in favor of mythical equality of opportunity?

Hence the admission of transgender people to competitions, attempts to artificially equalize everyone in rights through some kind of bans and changes in the rules ...

- We are returning to the question, why does sport exist at all?

Someone looks at it as the quintessence of a healthy lifestyle, although everyone has long understood that professional sports do not bring any health to a person.

But outstanding achievements can give a tremendous impetus to people's desire to go in for sports, to lead their children in sections.

Look at the influx of figure skating now.

And this is because we have our own champions.

- Or maybe the whole thing is in the television project of Ilya Averbukh "Ice Age"?

- I don't think.

A similar project was launched in the USA long before it started in our country.

And where are the American skaters?

Only now, largely thanks to Nathan Chen, the Americans began to improve the situation in men's single skating.

Do you seriously think that by providing figure skating with mythical gender and racial equality, we will attract someone to our sport?

It is unlikely ... Everyone wants to see a real fight, and most importantly - this is what television wants.

The scheme is simple: television is sponsors, sponsors are money.

No money, no sport.

- With the beginning of anti-Russian sanctions, some international federations have taken a rather curious position.

Without officially voicing the ban on the participation of our athletes in competitions, they present the situation under the sauce that they are very worried about their safety.

That is why he does not recommend coming to his championships.

- In figure skating it was different.

We were immediately informed that at the moment we are suspended from all ISU tournaments, and this decision is not discussed.

But an interesting question: when one country or another invites our skaters or coaches to give master classes abroad, for some reason no one even thinks about any security.

As well as the fact that the mental health of children may suffer from unwanted communication with Russians if we suddenly send our athletes to them in the country.

And at competitions, it turns out, this question is put almost at the forefront.

— Was the situation that happened to Russian judges who failed to pass the international advanced training exam a surprise for you?

- It could be predicted.

Unfortunately, we all had a very good time to feel how strongly sport is now politicized.

I will not name names, but at the Congress in Thailand I personally spoke with some ISU leaders and asked them to pay attention to the fact that there was no openly biased attitude towards Russian arbitrators at the judicial exam in Frankfurt.

And I received 100% guarantees that there will be no bias.

In fact, everything turned out to be completely different.

I know the situation well from the inside, which is why I speak so confidently about it.

Can you at least give a general outline?

- It was not an exam for licensing, but for advancing judges to higher positions, raising their category.

All our specialists passed the recertification stage online, and there were no problems with this.

And the promotion exam is conducted internally and consists of three equivalent parts.

During the theory test, the judges had to answer a large number of questions, and all domestic referees passed this test brilliantly.

The second stage is the identification of elements and their levels of complexity from the screen during the performances of athletes within the framework of certain competitions.

This part is quite difficult, especially for beginners, since there is no way to review the recording again and clarify some points.

But even taking into account the above, the effectiveness of the responses of Russian specialists was about 95%, while the norm was 75%.

The third part is the work of technical controllers in the team.

The examinees are seated in a position with two other judges from different countries, and each person does exactly the same job as in the competition.

With the only difference being judged from the screen.

Accordingly, people must not only determine the elements and levels of complexity, but also justify their actions, explain why they gave certain marks.

This stage, which, between us, is the least objective, our arbitrators did not pass.

At the same time, they corrected the mistakes of their partners.

There were no complaints about knowledge, they were told that they needed to work more in a team and increase their work experience ... But this part of the exam was passed by those who made a large number of mistakes during refereeing and have behind them two or three tournaments a year with a limited number of participants ... Where can we talk about objectivity!

The examination committee did not even take into account the fact that our judges serve up to 20 different competitions throughout the season, including the largest ones, evaluate a huge number of high-class athletes both in our country and abroad, that is, they really have tremendous experience.

— I have repeatedly heard that Alexander Lakernik, when he was the first vice-president of ISU, promoted Russian referees very much, gave them the opportunity to often travel to international tournaments, thanks to which our corps developed.

Don't you think that with his departure, domestic figure skating could be avenged for this too?

- I would not say that Alexander Rafailovich somehow especially zealously promoted Russia.

First of all, he ensured equal treatment of all judges, regardless of the country represented by this or that arbitrator.

Therefore, I would not say that under Lakernik our specialists began to judge a lot, but that they received the same opportunities as colleagues from the same USA, Canada or Australia.

— How difficult can the process of returning Russian representatives to the ISU be?

“It will take a lot of effort, of course.

After the Congress in Thailand, many said to me and to our delegates who were elected to certain posts: they say, understand us correctly, we are not voting against you personally, but simply received certain instructions from above in relation to Russia as a whole.

Some even apologized for being forced to do so.

This was the most offensive - to understand that the people with whom you communicated quite normally for many years suddenly turned into puppets without exception: on command, they turned in the other direction and did what they were told.

- What will happen to quotas when Russian skaters return to international ice?

For now, this is an open question.

Unlike China, we did not ourselves refuse to participate in the World Cup.

Therefore, of course, we will fight for the restoration of all our rights.

Just before you raise this issue, you need to wait for permission.

- At the moment, there are certain levers that regulate the transition of athletes from one country to another.

Do you admit that at some point the ISU may lift all quarantine restrictions altogether?

Declare transfer windows open and give Russian skaters and skaters the green light?

- I don’t think that the ISU Council, headed by the new president, will violate its own constitution, which very clearly spells out the rules for the transfer of athletes.

In this regard, we are still constantly interacting with a number of countries, including the so-called “unfriendly”, despite all the difficulties of the current moment.

By the way, I can say that we receive quite a lot of requests for the return of athletes back to the country, moreover, many of these requests have already been satisfied.

Why did people want to return?

- Someone's partner finished skating, and it turned out that no one needed the remaining skater, someone ran out of money, but there were no sponsors - there are different stories.

There are those who simply rush around the world in search of a better life.

In the abstract, a person today asks us for a release to move to Germany, in two months he already wants to go to Hungary, and after some time - to Estonia.

For me, this first of all says that the athlete does not want to skate, but simply leave the country.

- Well, why not let this go?

- Because there are certain obligations to the federations - both Russian and regional, to the club, to your coach, finally.

Fulfilled them - go wherever you want.

What is the problem?

Did the resonance around the hypothetical transition to the American flag by Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin surprise you?

- I was rather surprised by how powerfully the information thrown by the American blogger was promoted by the forces of our own journalists.

How it was done, I do not agree in principle.

Collecting gossip is, in my opinion, the last thing a professional sports journalist should do.

- I'll be honest with you, I was much more surprised by the very fact of such a heated discussion around a duet of a fairly average level

.

- This couple is the winners of the national championship.

They have demonstrated significant progress, as many Russian and foreign experts say.

And a heated discussion about their personal life, which, apparently, is largely due to the names of their parents, is not interesting to me.

- But if we think abstractly and assume that after some time Davis and Smolkin still want to skate for the USA, will this be a loss for the FFKKR?

- I think that the transition of any pair, as well as any athlete of the level of the national team, in this case would be a loss.

- Is it a pity for the money invested in training?

- Rather, it is a pity for the time and effort that the coaches spent in order for the athletes to achieve a certain result.

There is another point: does anyone care what will happen to these athletes next?

Name at least someone who would go under a different flag and achieve more than in Russia.

I don't think it will be that easy.

Why did the Canadians withdraw their request for a release for Natalia Zabiyako, do you know?

- Not.

This is their problem, not ours.

- How strictly will the participation of the country's leading figure skaters in the Russian Grand Prix series be regulated?

- We have already gone through the experience of a covid year, when Russia became the only country in the world that retained all its competitions and representation at each of the domestic competitions.

This season we will act according to the same scheme: the strongest will be seeded in such a way that the stages will turn out to be equivalent and interesting.

We are planning fairly high prize money for juniors as well, so we hope the overall level of the tournaments will be solid.

Moreover, all of them will take place in good palaces, with spectators, with television.

We hope this format will be interesting for both athletes and spectators.

It is impossible to develop a sport without having competitions.

- At all domestic tournaments, regardless of which country we are talking about, refereeing is usually as loyal as possible.

But then they will have to return to international sports and they will be evaluated differently.

Is it possible to prepare athletes for this?

Tighten the refereeing of their tournaments to the maximum, for example?

It's always a double-edged sword.

We always evaluate domestic skates, both junior and senior, as harshly and meticulously as possible.

This has been done over the past years, and it will be the same now (the rentals are scheduled for September 24-25. -

).

As for competitive performances, technique has always been judged harshly in our tournaments.

But in terms of components, we have a situation where the entire reward system has changed globally.

By the way, our judge Alla Shekhovtsova also took an active part in the development of this system.

And it's a shame that because of her belonging to Russia, she was not included in the list of moderators for judging components.

But we will ask Alla Viktorovna to conduct a corresponding seminar at the All-Russian Seminar of Judges.

We have yet to implement the new component evaluation system and I do not think that any of the judges will set themselves the task of being loyal.

- I can’t help but ask one more question: in the interviews of the skaters and their parents over the past months, the topic of physical and mental coaching violence has been raised several times.

Do you think there is a problem, or is it largely contrived?

- There are problems of this nature in figure skating and always have been.

Naturally, this is not normal, and at the last executive committee we decided to create an ethics commission.

Our lawyers are already developing a special code that will apply to all participants in the process - athletes, coaches, staff, competition organizers, and so on.

Before that, we only had a code of ethics for sports referees.

- What measures will be taken in relation to the coach if he allows himself to hit or insult the child?

“Unfortunately, the coaching profession in our country is not a licensed activity, so we cannot take away a license from a coach.

But the most stringent measures will be taken.

- Does it break you personally when such information becomes public through the press?

“It breaks me the very fact that such things happen.

It's just that any process is always two-sided.

If an athlete and his parents are ready to listen to swearing and swearing in training, if they allow themselves to be treated boorishly, then, probably, there is no need to make claims to someone else.

Sometimes the parents themselves, in their desire for their child to achieve certain results, behave not quite tactfully towards their children, or even engage in assault.

This is a complex topic, in fact, in which you can not go too far.

I know that in America the same Rafael Harutyunyan works, holding a handle from a hockey stick in his hands.

And on this stick, he shows the athletes where and how to lean, how to turn around ... This is unlikely to have a positive effect on the athlete, but it is safe for the coach.

- Well, the late Igor Moskvin said: the first thing America teaches is to go on the ice in motorcycle gloves, so that God forbid you don’t touch the skater with your bare hand.

- Agree, this is also an extreme.

Especially in figure skating, where every gesture must be worked out, right down to the position of the fingers.

But what are we left to do?

Just keep moving forward, overcome this too.