The following is a press releaase from the International Athlete's Commission.
On March 29, 2003, the athletes held a meeting at the Metro Marriott Hotel, in Washington
DC. The outcome of this meeting, open to all international athletes in attendance at the
World Championships, was the formation of an athlete-based organization. We are now in the
formulation stage of putting together an athlete's commission to have a voice and a vote
in figure skating worldwide.
We have discussed and voted on seven different issues that we would like to see
implemented within the figure skating organization. Each of these items was passed with a
unanimous vote.
These issues are:
1) We moved to form a commission of athletes.
2) We are vehemently against anonymous judging, feeling that all judges should be held
accountable for the marks that they give at that time.
3) We want athlete representative on the ISU Council, Technical Committee and all other
committees with not only a voice, but also voting power.
4) We want to revise the sanctions and eligibility rules, opening up the eligibility rules
in the ISU and member federations.
5) We want urgent action by the ISU to enforce ISU rule 366 section 4, revealing judges'
total marks for all events retroactive to the beginning of the 2002/2003 competitive
season.
"Protocols of single and pairs skating competitions must indicate for each
competitor/pair marks and total points obtained from each judge in each part of the
competition, calculating matrixes and the final result;" ISU rule 366, #4
6) We want harsher penalties for judges who are found to have corrupted an event with
unethical behavior, including lifetime bans with a zero- tolerance policy. We would also
like a clause included protecting "whistle-blowers."
7) This commission will hold meeting at all Grand Prix events, the World Championships as
well as all other major international competitions.
As athletes, we feel strongly that the sport of figure skating will benefit greatly form
the formation of this commission and are very excited about the future of our sport.