ISU World No47 May 2012

INTERNATIONAL SKATING UNION OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER

INSIDE • ISU NEWS • Season Review • YOG REVIEW • CONGRESS PReview • RESULTS

NO 47 MAY 2012

ISU COUNCIL We cannot declare for sure in which Country sport was practiced for the first time at a competitive level. We do however know that it is in Greece that the first Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C. This is a date we shall honour, even though for practical use, allow me to say that we consider competitive sport to exist for approximately 3000 years.

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The motivation to be the best and strongest probably has not changed since the beginning up to the present, but in the meantime mankind substantially increased and improved the knowledge of what we today define as vital areas: science, music, medicine, literature, theatre, just to mention a few activities among many others where there is evidence of the continuous progress.

The purpose of this message is to sketch a tentative summary on the development acknowledged in sport. The majority of innovations, for instance television, computers, media, technology, anti-doping, officials (i.e. referees, judges, etc.) involves all sports.

Other extremely important achievements may involve only a large majority of sports, but exceptions still exist, for example: indoor arenas, artificial snow and ice, synthetic grass, surfaces and materials which replaced natural ones like wood, cotton, clay, etc.

The global progress in sport forms a pretty long list, much longer than the examples here cited, practically proves that it is extremely difficult to compare performances offered in different periods. However, there are some sport disciplines where progress did not produce a complete revolution. For example: Cycling (due to weather conditions), Ski (artificial snow), Swimming (water), as well as others like Wrestling and Strength disciplines, practically remained the same for a long time and changes were introduced in regulations “thanks” to the activity of officials and sport administrators striving to progressively introduce new rules and conditions. It is true that in Cycling and in Ski, for instance, technical equipment evolved a lot, but in any case weather conditions have to be accepted by athletes today as they were in the past.

A major question therefore still remains pending. Are we sure that athletes setting a world record today are indeed better than those who performed a world record in the same discipline a long time ago? What is the influence of Progress, intended as global evolution, in the achievement of the last world record? The only system I personally use to make a comparison, is to check how the winners, or the best athletes, defeated the opponent participants in the period when both groups were active.

This dilemma makes sport almost unique, anyone can discuss, issue a personal opinion, but nobody is in a position to give evidence of what he believes. This is the magic touch of sport. Any event has its story, all champions are elected as the best also for the fact that those putting them on the very top practically live in the same period and find it proper to say that measured performances are not arguable. But soon they will be wrong, overtaken by new world’s best and the endless story we are evaluating will continue over and over.

We do not ignore either that many “doubtful performances” will become the subject of many spicy discussions. But when tackling such a delicate topic, one might deliver a convenient comment: “But this was possible also in the past.” It has to be admitted that regretfully this might have been the case and maybe years ago it was also easier, exactly because Progress had not yet touched such an important and delicate area.

Ottavio Cinquanta President, International Skating Union

ISU World is the official newsletter of the International Skating Union Published and produced by ISU, Chemin de Primerose 2, 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland Telephone: +41 21 612 66 66. Facsimile: +41 21 612 66 77.

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Front cover photograph: Arianna Fontana (ITA) by ©Francesco A. Armillotta Photography: ©Getty Images/AFP, Leon Neal, Matthew Stockman, Dean Mouhtaropoulos, Gerhardt Bubník

The ISU Council met in Nice (FRA) on March 30 to April 2 to prepare for the 54th Ordinary Congress taking place next June in Kuala Lumpur (MAS). During the Council meeting it was agreed to change the date of the 2013 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships to be held in Osaka (JPN) to February 6-11, 2013. The ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships 2013 will be held in Debrecen (HUN) instead of Budapest and the ISU Council decided to hold the next ISU World Team Trophy in Japan on April 11-14, 2013. The Essent ISU World Cup Speed Skating and the Samsung ISU World Cup Short Track series have provisionally been allotted and can be found on the ISU Website’s calendar. The Council decided to launch the first edition of the ISU Development Trophy during the season 2012/13. This competition will be restricted to skaters from developing ISU Members of both the Figure Skating and Speed Skating Branch. All relevant details are being worked out by the ISU Development Coordinator in cooperation with the relevant ISU internal bodies and full details will be announced in due time. Please refer to Communication 1722 for more information.

The Council will meet again on June 10 and 16-17, 2012 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during the 54th Ordinary Congress.

ISU SPORTS DIRECTORATE

The ISU Sports Directorate was heavily involved with the first Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Innsbruck (AUT). With coverage in 70 countries the event was deemed successful. An evaluation of the competition formats is under discussion in order to improve the presentation of the sports for the next YOG. In the Figure Skating Branch, the Directorate was not only involved in the preparation of the 2012 Championships, but also organized a number of Development seminars, including the Pair Skating Development seminar in Berlin with 24 pairs in attendance; two Ice Dance Development Seminars in Oberstdorf with over 28 Dance couples and 43 Coaches; and in Asia a new Ice Dance Development seminar with 22 Dance teams and 20 Coaches.

The goal of the seminars is to attract more Pairs and Ice Dancers and raise the standard of these two disciplines.

In the Speed Skating Branch, the Directorate also had a busy season with a number of events and Championships. The evaluation and progression of new competition formats and safety standards are constantly being

ISU NEWS assessed. The Junior World Cup Speed Skating series for next season is almost finalized and new tutorial videos for Short Track Speed Skating seminars are under discussion.

Single & Pair Skating

The Single and Pair Technical Committee Members acted as Referees and Technical Controllers at the ISU Championships and served as Moderators at the ISU Judges Seminars in Berlin and Warsaw. The Committee met on the occasion of the ISU World Figure Skating Championships last March in Nice (FRA) and worked on the proposals for the ISU Congress 2012 and the ISU Communications with changes for the season 2012/13. No major changes are expected until after the Olympic Winter Games 2014. The evaluation of the Officials’ service in the season 2011/12 is being finalized and the decisions on the Officials’ nominations for the season 2012/13 will be made in May during the meeting in Rome (ITA).

Ice Dance

Ice Dance Technical Committee (IDTC) members participated as Referees or Technical Controllers at the European, Four Continents and World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Meetings with Coaches were held at each Championships in order to receive feedback and test new ideas for future seasons. Approximately 100 people attended the annual meeting held in Nice (FRA) where pro-

posals for the ISU Congress 2012, Technical Requirements and Short Dance Rhythms and Pattern Dance Elements for seasons 2012/13 and 2013/14 were presented. Last April a Judges Seminar was conducted in Warsaw and preparation for Seminars in Vienna in May and Toronto in July are underway. Technical Requirements for the season 2012/13 were published in ISU Communication 1721.

Synchronized Skating

The Synchronized Skating Technical Committee (SyS TC) was busy with the Junior World Challenge Cup and World Championships taking place in March and April respectively. The Swedish Federation successfully hosted both events. Last April a trial Judging and Judges Examinations took place at the Championships and a Technical Committee meeting was held during the World Challenge Cup event in March. The SyS TC has prepared the proposals for Congress, the aim of the changes to the Rules is to simplify the regulations for the Coaches and allow more creative freedom in program construction. The SyS TC also met with the ISU President and Council during the World Championships to discuss a number of topics pertaining to the discipline.

Speed Skating

During the second part of the season the Committee assigned technical representatives for 5 ISU Championships, 4 Essent ISU World Cup competitions, the ISU Junior

World Cup final and for the speed skating competitions at the first edition of the Winter Youth Olympic Games. The Committee met on the occasion of the World Single Distances Championships in Heerenveen, where the annual season review meeting with Coaches took place prior to the Championships. The Committee has reviewed the proposals for Speed Skating Rule changes announced in the provisional agenda for the 2012 ISU Congress, and has adjusted some of its own proposals based on feedback received. The Committee has been working on the structure and the details of the ISU speed skating calendar for the 2012/13 season.

Short Track

The season concluded with the ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Shanghai (CHN) with 33 ISU Member countries competing and over 10,000 people in attendance each day, the event was the most successful of the season. The popularity of the sport keeps growing in Asia and interest is also increasing in Europe with a full house in Dordrecht during the Korean Air ISU World Cup final. The Star Class and Danubia series final is expanding and gaining importance each year and greatly contributing to the successful development and participation in the sport. The Short Track Speed Skating Technical Committee will conduct next August an Officials seminar in Dresden (GER) and finished preparing proposals for Rule and Regulation changes to be presented at the ISU Congress.

MEDICAL

The ISU launched the ISU Anti-Doping Education and Certification Program named “CLEAN SKATER”. “CLEAN SKATER” is an online interactive education program based on the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Code.

It will give skaters knowledge of key topics on Anti-Doping. The program is available in several languages and by completing the nine modules the user will be registered as certified. Although the “CLEAN SKATER” program is currently optional, in the future it might become compulsory for all skaters who enter an ISU Event. Therefore all skaters are encouraged to obtain their Anti-Doping certificate as soon as possible. “CLEAN SKATER” is available on the ISU website www.isu.org.

ISU President Mr Ottavio Cinquanta receives the Légion d’Honneur.

ISU WEBSITE: www.isu.org

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youth olympic games

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Figure Skating was an important part of the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck (AUT) last January. 66 young skaters from 21 ISU Members participated in the Games. Han Yan (CHN) dominated the Men’s event and skated off with the gold medal. Shoma Uno (JPN) claimed the silver and the bronze went to Feodosi Efremenkov (RUS). Elizaveta Tuktamisheva (RUS) and Adelina Sotnikova (RUS) continued their ongoing duel and made it one-two for Russia in the Ladies event. Zijun Li (CHN) earned the bronze medal. Xiaoyu Yu/Yang Jin (CHN) won the Pairs followed by Lina Fedorova/Maxim Miroshkin (RUS) and Anastasia Dolidze/

Vadim Ivanov (RUS). Anna Yanovskaya/Sergey Mozgov (RUS) struck gold in the Ice Dance event. Aleksandra Nazarova/Maxim Nikitin (UKR) took the silver while Maria Simonova/ Dmitri Dragun (RUS) picked up the bronze.

A mixed NOC Team event also took place for the first time in skating history. Each team included one Lady, one Man and one Ice Dance Couple. Team 4 ; Jordan Bauth (USA), Shoma Uno (JPN) and Eugenia Tkachenka/ Yuri Gulitski (BLR) won gold, Team 2 ; Eveliina Viljanen (FIN), Yaroslav Paniot (UKR) and Maria Simonova / Dmitri Dragun (RUS) took silver and Team 6 ; Anais Ventard (FRA), Carlo Vittorio Palermo (ITA) and Jana Cejkova / Alexandr Sinicyn (CZE) skated off with bronze.

isu european championships The 104th edition of the ISU European Championships held January 23 to 29 was hosted in Sheffield (GBR) for the first time.

2006 Olympic Champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko (RUS) returned to competition to claim his seventh European title in convincing fashion. His young teammate Artur Gachinski completed a successful event for the Russian men by taking the silver medal and defending champion Florent Amodio (FRA) captured the bronze. Michal Brezina (CZE) settled for fourth place ahead of Tomas Verner (CZE).

Carolina Kostner (ITA) skated to her fourth European title while Kiira Korpi (FIN) earned her first silver following two bronze medals in 2007 and 2011. Elene Gedevanishvili (GEO) claimed her second bronze medal after 2010.

Newcomer Polina Korobeynikova (RUS) came fourth and Viktoria Helgesson (SWE) finished fifth.

Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov led a Russian sweep in the Pairs event followed

by Vera Bazarova/Yuri Larionov and Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov who debuted at ISU senior level Championships. Stefania Berton/ Ondrej Hotarek (ITA) placed fourth and Mari Vartmann/Aaron van Cleave (GER) were fifth.

Defending champions Aliona Savchenko/ Robin Szolkowy (GER) withdrew due to injury before the Short Program.

In the Ice Dance competition, Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat (FRA) defended their title while Ekaterina Bobrova/Dmitri Soloviev (RUS) repeated as silver medalists.

Elena Ilinykh/Nikita Katsalapov danced from seventh place after the Short Dance on to the podium and took their first senior-level Championships medal. Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte (ITA) finished only 0.03 points off the podium in fourth place while Ekaterina Riazanova/Ilia Tkachenko (RUS) were fifth.

isu four continents championships

Meryl Davis and Charlie White (USA)

The 14th edition of the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships took place in Colorado Springs (USA) from February 7 to 12. 2011 World Champion Patrick Chan (CAN) continued a successful season by winning the title. 2010 World Champion Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) skated to the silver medal and Ross Miner (USA) captured the bronze, his first ISU Championships medal.

Adam Rippon (USA) came fourth followed by Takahito Mura (JPN).

Ashley Wagner (USA) struck gold in the Ladies event. Mao Asada (JPN) settled for

FIGURE SKATING the silver medal and Caroline Zhang (USA) claimed the bronze. Kanako Murakami (JPN) was ranked fourth and Kexin Zhang (CHN) came fifth.

In the ongoing North American Ice Dance duel, Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue/ Scott Moir (CAN) edged out Olympic silver medalists Meryl Davis/Charlie White (USA) for the Four Continents title. Kaitlyn Weaver/ Andrew Poje (CAN) danced to the bronze medal. Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani (USA) were fourth ahead of Madison Hubbell/ Zachary Donohue (USA).

In the Pairs event, Wenjing Sui/Cong Han (CHN) skated to the gold in what was their debut at an ISU senior-level Championship.

Silver medalists Caydee Denney/John Coughlin (USA) and bronze medalists MaryBeth Marley/Rockne Brubaker were also new to the podium.

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world junior championships On February 27 to March 4, the Junior season 2011/12 culminated with the ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Minsk (BLR) who hosted an ISU Championships for the first time. Junior Worlds showcased the emerging talent from all over the world.

207 skaters from 53 ISU Members were entered for the event. Grenada was represented for the first time at ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships with an entry in the Ladies event.

Julia Lipnitskaia (RUS) crowned her extraordinary debut season with the World Junior title. Newcomer Gracie Gold (USA) who had competed only in one Junior Grand Prix event before, stormed to the silver medal while defending Champion Adelina Sotnikova (RUS) settled for the bronze this time. Satoko Miyahara (JPN) finished fourth and Zijun Li (CHN) was ranked fifth.

Youth Olympic Champion Han Yan (CHN) made history as the first Chinese man to win Junior Worlds. Joshua Farris (USA) and Jason Brown (USA) took the silver and bronze medals. Denis Ten (KAZ) came fourth and Zhan Bush (RUS) placed fifth.

Wenjing Sui/Cong Han (CHN) claimed their third consecutive World Junior title. Xiaoyu Yu/Yang Jin (CHN) took the silver and debutants Vasilisa Davankova/Andrei Deputat (RUS) rose from fifth after the Short to take home the bronze in their first ISU competition.

Haven Denney/Brandon Frazier (USA) finished fourth ahead of Margaret Purdy/Michael Marinaro (CAN).

Evgeni Plushenko (RUS)

In the Ice Dance event, Victoria Sinitsina/ Ruslan Zhiganshin (RUS) secured the title followed by their teammates Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin. Alexandra Aldridge/ Daniel Eaton (USA) earned the bronze medal.

All three couples debuted at the ISU World Junior Championships. Youth Olympic Champions Anna Yanovskaya/Sergey Mozgov (RUS) came fourth and Gabriella Papadakis/ Guillaume Cizeron (FRA) were ranked fifth.

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world championships The 102nd edition of the ISU World Figure Skating Championships took place in Nice (FRA) March 26 to April 1. The Championships returned to France for the first time since 2000. 218 skaters from 54 ISU Members participated in the event including the Preliminary Rounds, which was a new record number. The twelve medals went to six different ISU Members. Japan earned four medals, but no gold while two gold medals went to Canada, one to Italy and one to Germany.

Carolina Kostner (ITA)

Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy (GER) continued their reign by taking their fourth World title. Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov (RUS) recovered from a subpar Short Program to repeat as silver medalists, edged out by just 0.11 points. Bronze medalists Narumi Takahashi/Mervin Tran (JPN) made history as the first Japanese pairs team to win a medal at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships. 2011 World bronze medalists Qing Pang/Jian Tong (CHN) had sat out the whole season up to Worlds and finished fourth in their return. Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford (CAN) placed fifth.

Carolina Kostner (ITA) made history by claiming the first Ladies world title for her country. Silver medalist Alena Leonova (RUS) won Russia’s first Ladies medal since Irina Slutskaya was World Champion in 2005 and Akiko Suzuki took home the bronze three days after her 27th birthday. Ashley Wagner (USA) was ranked fourth and Kanako Murakami (JPN) slipped from second after the Short Program to fifth place.

Patrick Chan (CAN) defended his World title, becoming the first man in six years to do so.

Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) was a strong second and 17-year-old Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN) stormed to the bronze in his debut at the ISU World Championships. Brian Joubert (FRA) and Florent Amodio (FRA) finished fourth and fifth respectively.

FIGURE SKATING Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (CAN) recaptured the dance title in the roles of Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire to the “Funny Face” soundtrack.

Defending champions Meryl Davis/Charlie White (USA) danced to the silver medal to “Die Fledermaus”. Nathalie Pechalat/ Fabian Bourzat (FRA) overcame her broken nose to claim the bronze medal, their first World medal. Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje (CAN) finished fourth and Elena Ilinykh/Nikita Katsalapov (RUS) came fifth.

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world synchronized skating championships The 13th edition of the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships returned to the city of Goteborg in Sweden. The Championships were last in Sweden in 2005 and this year 21 Teams from 16 countries competed for the title. With only 2,62 points separating the top five teams in the final result these Championships have been one of the tightest in history. Team Surprise (Sweden 1) took the gold medal in front of their home crowd bringing their sixth World Championships victory after previous wins in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007. The silver medalists Nexxice (Canada 1) delivered a solid performance and the Haydenettes (USA 1) took the bronze. The winners of the Free Skate, the Rockettes (Finland 2) missed the podium by 0,03 points and finished fourth while the leaders of the short program, Paradise (Russia 1), had a fall in their Free Program which put them in fifth place.

The ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships 2013 will be held in Boston, USA.

isu world team trophy in figure skating The second edition of the ISU World Team Trophy in Figure Skating was a big success in the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo (JPN).

The top six national teams of the 2011/12 season qualified for the event: Japan, Canada, Russia, USA, France and for the first time, Italy. Team Japan took the gold medals with 55 points, beating defending champions Team USA who obtained 53 points. Team Canada edged out Team France for the bronze medals on a tie-breaker (42 points).

Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) set new personal best scores in both segments and posted a new Short Program record of 94.00 points to win the Men’s category followed by World Champion Patrick Chan (CAN) and Brian

Narumi Takahashi and Mervin Tran (JPN)

Joubert (FRA). World bronze medalist Akiko Suzuki (JPN) upset World Champion Carolina Kostner (ITA) and won the Ladies’ event. World bronze medalists Narumi Takahashi/Mervin Tran (JPN) finished third in the Pairs category.

World silver medalists Meryl Davis /Charlie White (USA) led their team with their win in the Ice Dance category and beat World Champions Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (CAN).

Ashley Wagner (USA) contributed with her third-place finish to the success of the team.

Team Canada took three second-places in the three categories and pulled up to third on the

final day. In addition to Chan and Virtue/Moir, pair skaters Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford came second.

Team France lost the bronze to Canada as their two best placements were third in Ice Dance with Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat (FRA) and Joubert. Team Russia was ranked fifth at 39 points and overtook Team Italy on the tie-breaker thanks to Vera Bazarova/ Yuri Larionov’s win in the Pairs. The next ISU World Team Trophy will be held in 2013. A slightly different format of the team event will be part of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi (RUS) for the first time.

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Left Sjinkie Knegt (NED) and Pierre Boda (AUS)

short track youth olympic games

16 ladies and 16 men competed in the 500 m, 1000 m and mixed NOC Team 3000 m Relay for their chance to be crowned the first ever Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) champion.

The Koreans won all races and took 6 medals out of the possible 12 (4 gold and 2 silver).

China got 2 silver and 2 bronze whilst Italy and Japan were awarded with a bronze medal each.

In the ladies’ 500 m Suk Hee Shim (KOR) was crowned YOG Champion, Aili Xu (CHN) took the silver and Nicole Martinelli (ITA) was awarded bronze. Shim and Xu repeated their performance in the 1000 m but this time Sumire Kikuchi (JPN) took the bronze.

In the men’s event Su Min Yoon (KOR) took the gold in the 500 m and silver in the 1000 m and his team mate Hyo Jun Lim did the opposite (silver in 500 m and gold in the 1000 m). Hongzhi Xu (CHN) won bronze in both distances.

For the first time in Short Track history, a Mixed NOC and Mixed Gender Team 3000 m Relay took place. Team B was crowned YOG Champion followed by Team F and Team A. The composition of the teams is available on page 15.

european championships

26 European countries were represented at the ISU European Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Mlada Boleslav in the Czech

Republic. Reigning ladies’ European champion Arianna Fontana of Italy won the 500 m, 1500 m and 3000 m accumulating a total score of 107 and enabled her to take the title for the third year running. With 76 points Jorien Ter Mors (NED) got the silver medal while Martina Valcepina (ITA) finished third with 43 points.

The man who got the highest score was Sjinkie Knegt (NED) with 63 points winning his first European title. Dutchman Niels Kerstholt finished second and Thibaut Fauconnet (FRA) finished third.

In the ladies’ relay the Netherlands got the gold, Italy silver and Hungary bronze. The Dutch also won the men’s relay followed by Russia and Germany.

world cup

The Korean Air ISU World Cup Short Track series first went to North America (USA and Canada) then to Asia (Japan and China) and finished in Europe (Russia and Netherlands) where the final event took place in Dordrecht where the World Cup overall winners were announced.

Italian skater Arianna Fontana accumulated 4800 points and won the 500 m World Cup title followed by her team mate Martina Valcepina with 3942 points. Qiuhong Liu (CHN) got third place with 3930 points. Yui Sakai from Japan took the 1000 m Cup with a total of 4202 points, Jianrou Li (CHN) accumulated 3312 points finishing second whilst Elise Christie (GBR) got 3230 points earning third

place. In the 1500 m it is Ha-Ri Cho (KOR) who got the Cup with her 5040 points and team mate Eun-Byul Lee came second with 4302 points. With over 1000 points difference American Lana Gehring finished third with 2952.

In the Ladies Relay Team China triumphed with 4000 points, followed by Team USA (2810 points) and in third position Team Japan (2720 points).

On the Men’s side Canadians Olivier Jean (4000 points) and Charles Hamelin (3240 points) took first and second place in the 500 m and Wenhao Liang (CHN) took third with 2970 points. Koreans Yoon-Gy Kwak (5312 points) and Jinkyu Noh (3896 points) placed in first and second position and Olivier Jean (3264 points) in third in the 1000 m. In the 1500 m it was a Korean sweep. With 6000 points Jinkyu Noh was well ahead on his team mates Da Woon Sin and Yoon-Gy Kwak who got 3280 and 2978 points respectively. In the Men’s Relay Team Canada prevailed with 3600 points, Team Korea was second with 3080 points and with a total score of 2968 points Team China finished third.

world junior championships

The Koreans were in good form in Melbourne (AUS) winning 7 out of a possible 12 medals.

Korea swept the ladies’podium with Suk Hee Shim finishing ahead of teammates Hyun Su Hwang (second) and Se Jun Ahn (third).

On the men’s side, Se Yeong Park took the Junior World Championship title by a mere

SPEED SKATING three points over teammate Hyo Been Lee and Tianyu Han of China was third. The weekend’s racing concluded with 3000 m Relay events.

The ladies event was won by the team from Korea. China was second, and Russia was third. In the men’s event, it was a close race between Korea and China, with Korea taking the win. The team from the United States completed the podium.

world championships

The Short Track season ended in Shanghai (CHN) at the ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships. Single Distance medals and the Overall Championships medals were up for grabs. The Overall champion was determined by the skater who accumulated the most points after skating the four distances: 1500 m, 500 m, 1000 m and 3000 m Super Final. Points were awarded in descending order to skaters who competed in the final of each distance; commencing with first place 34, 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, and 1 points.

Jianrou Li (CHN) skated consistently throughout the Championships, finishing with 60 points and took the overall title. Second was Valerie Maltais from Canada who earned a total of 47 points, while Arianna Fontana from Italy finished third with 44 points.

In the Ladies 500 m Kexin Fan (CHN) was crowned World Champion followed by Arianna Fontana (ITA) and Lana Gehring (USA). Ha-Ri Cho (KOR) took the 1000 m title; Jianrou Li took silver while Valerie Maltais got bronze.

In the 1500 m Li took gold and this time team mate Qiuhong Liu followed and Canadian Marie-Eve Drolet finished third. Valerie Maltais won the 3000 m, followed by Fontana and Drolet. The home crowd cheered Team China to the win in the Relay, followed by Team USA and closely behind was Team Korea.

On the men’s side, Yoon-Gy Kwak (KOR) dominated the World Championships, finishing on the podium in each of the four individual events accumulating a total of 102 points and taking the overall title. His teammate Jinkyu Noh finished second overall with 76 points, while Canadian skater Olivier Jean finished third, with 52 points. Olivier Jean won the 500 m, with team mate Charles Hamelin hot on his heels and Kwak close behind. Kwak then won his first single distance gold medal in the 1000 m followed by team mate Noh and Canadian Hamelin. The Koreans did a clean sweep in the 1500 m with Noh, Kwak and Da Woon Sin and again in the 3000 m this time with Kwak first, Noh second and Sin third. It was Team Canada who won the Men’s Relay, Team Netherlands finished second and Team Korea third.

speed skating youth olympic games

48 skaters, competed at the first Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) on the outdoor oval in the 500 m, 1500 m, 3000 m and mass start. Athletes from Asia won 18 out of the 24 medals. Japan triumphed with 7 medals (3 silver and 4 bronze), China won 6 (4 gold and 2 silver). With 2 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze Korea totaled 5 medals; the Netherlands got 2 gold and one silver whilst Norway, Belarus and Russia got one medal each. In the Ladies’ 500m Mi Jang (KOR) was crowned YOG Champion. Xiaoxuan Shi (CHN) came second and Martine Lilloy Bruun from Norway was closely behind in third. In the Men’s 500 m An Liu from China took the gold, Roman Dubovik (BLR) the silver and Toshihiro Kakui (JPN) the Bronze. Mi Jang took her second title in the Ladies 1500 m, with Sanneke De Neeling (NED) in second and Sumire Kikuchi (JPN) in third. In the men’s 1500 m not only did Fan Yang (CHN) win but he also finished under 2 minutes beating An Liu by 6.08 seconds.

Seitaro Ichinohe (JPN) was close third only 0.02 seconds behind Liu. In the 3000 m Sanneke De Neeling took her second medal, but this time it was gold. Rio Harada (JPN) earned silver whilst Su Ji Jang (KOR) took bronze. In the Men’s distance, Fan Yang finished almost 7 seconds ahead of Seitaro Ichinohe who finished second. The bronze medalist was Hyeok Jun Noh (KOR). Sanneke De Neeling earned her second gold medal in the Mass Start. Su Ji Jang took silver while Sumire Kikuchi took the bronze. Fan Yang proved to be the one to look for in the future by winning 3 out of the 4 Men’s events. Indeed he was crowned YOG champion in the Mass start, Seitaro Ichinohe took the silver and earned his third medal. Vasiliy Pudushkin (RUS) won his first medal with bronze.

world cup

For the first time in World Cup Speed Skating history the top 5 ranked competitors from each individual distance earned points towards the ‘Grand World Cup’. The Lady and Man with the highest number of points was crowned ‘Grand World Cup’ winner. The series visited Chelyabinsk and Astana for the first time in November then moved to Heerenveen in December. The sprinters met in Salt Lake City in January and the allround skaters met in Hamar in February. In March the competition went back to Heerenveen and the final took place in Berlin. Christine Nesbitt of Canada and Kjeld Nuis (NED) accumulated the most points throughout the Essent World Cup season and won the first Grand World Cup title.

500 m Ladies Although Jing Yu (CHN) skipped the competition in Astana she won 7 out of 12 competitions and accumulated 960 points enabling her to take the 500 m Cup for the first time.

Sang-Hwa Lee (KOR) was the runner-up for the second year running, winning 3 competitions and finishing second at 5. After her six year reign, Jenny Wolf (GER) finished third with 2 wins, 2 second and 3 third place wins.

1000 m Ladies Christine Nesbitt (CAN) dominated the 1000 m this season. She did not compete in two races but won the 5 she participated in. Heather Richardson (USA) won the World Cup last year and took advantage of Nesbitt’s absence to win one race and totaled 459 points and finished second. Marrit Leenstra (NED) was third with 420 and although Laurine van Riessen (NED) won in Salt Lake City she finished sixth.

1500 m Ladies The dominating ladies from last season battled it out for the 1500 m Cup. Christine Nesbitt and Ireen Wüst (NED) both won three races and the final would determine the winner.

Wüst withdrew from the final at the last moment due to illness and finished second overall with 450 points. This left Nesbitt the opportunity to take the win with a total of 510 points. Last year’s runner up Marrit Leenstra finished third with 401 points.

3000 m / 5000 m Ladies For the sixth year in a row, Martina Sáblíková (CZE) won the long distance World Cup. She was the only one certain of victory before the Final race in Berlin, winning every race and getting the maximum of 650 points. Stephanie Beckert (GER), despite struggling with an injury, took second place with 410 points, leaving Claudia Pechstein (GER) 5 points behind her. Pechstein skipped the race in Hamar, but finished on every other podium.

Team Pursuit Ladies Winning three out of four events and with 390 points the Canadian ladies won the Team Pursuit. Russia won the race in Hamar and with three more podium finishes reached second overall with 355 points. Korea was third with 320. None of the teams on the podium last season made the Final this year.

Mass Start Ladies The Mass Start races were held for the first time this year and it is Mariska Huisman (NED) who won with 320 points. Claudia Pechstein was second with 310. In all races they finished in first and second, only Pechstein won the last race in Berlin, where more points could be won. With 175 points Anna Rokita (AUT) secured a podium place for Austria for the first time in many years.

500 m Men In the men’s 500 m, no skater dominated.

9

SPEED SKATING first man to win the Mass Start World Cup. Jorrit Bergsma, after winning the final race, was runner-up with 212 points. Jonathan Kuck (USA) was third with 196 points. He won in Heerenveen and finished second in Astana, but then he fell in Berlin and finished fourteenth. Seong-Hoon Lee (KOR) won the first race in Astana but did not make it on the podium.

10

european championships

The skaters competed on the beautiful outdoor rink in Budapest (HUN). Martina Sáblíková (CZE) won her fourth European title and Claudia Pechstein (GER) finished with silver. Ireen Wüst (NED), who seemed to struggle outdoors, took bronze while International debutant Linda de Vries (NED) finished fourth. After sitting out the previous season Kramer was in good form and was crowned European champion. Team mate Jan Blokhuijsen followed in second and Håvard Bøkko took the bronze.

world sprint championships

Denny Morrison (CAN)

Out of the 12 races, 9 different winners emerged however with 1 win in Astana and 702 points Tae-Bum Mo (KOR) gathered the most points. Pekka Koskela (FIN) finished in second place with 674 points. He won the first 500 m of the season, and one in Heerenveen.

Tucker Fredricks finished third with 646 points, winning twice in Heerenveen. Listed in overall ranking, the other wins were Jan Smeekens (NED), Joji Kato (JPN), Michel Mulder (NED), Jamie Gregg (CAN), Keiichiro Nagashima, and two for Dmitry Lobkov (RUS).

1000 m Men Multiple winner Shani Davis (USA) and last year’s winner Stefan Groothuis (NED) battled it out for the title and it is not until the decisive final 1000 m race that a winner was crowned. Davis won with 600 points, overtaking Groothuis (580 points) in the last race. Davis won the last four races, Groothuis the first two, the race in between was for Kjeld Nuis (NED), who finished on the podium four more times and finished third overall with 486 points.

1500 m Men Four time reigning World Cup Champion Shani Davis (USA) was dethroned by Håvard Bøkko (NOR). Last year’s World Champion on this dis-

tance won the final race and had four podium finishes and earned a total of 472 points. With three podium finishes Kjeld Nuis won silver with 430 points. Although Davis won two races he finished third, just 5 points behind Nuis. The other three wins were for Ivan Skobrev (RUS), Stefan Groothuis and Wouter Olde Heuvel (NED).

5000/10000 m Men This year was a Dutch podium sweep with all skaters winning two races. Bob de Jong (NED) managed to repeat his achievement of last season by winning the long distance World Cup with 510 points. Sven Kramer (NED), back after a year of absence, finished second with 440 points. Jorrit Bergsma (NED) with 435 completed the Dutch podium.

Team Pursuit Men Like in the ladies’ field, the podium was completely different from last season. The Dutch team won three out of four races and therefore won the Team Pursuit World Cup, having accumulated 374 points. Korea was the runner-up with 340 points, Germany third with 300. The Russian team won one race, but did not have enough points to race in the Final.

Mass Start Men With 250 points Alexis Contin (FRA) is the

The World Sprint Championships took place on the fast ice of Calgary (CAN) where 2 new world and 17 national records and 68 personal bests were announced. Jing Yu is the first female skater in history to finish under 37 seconds in the 500 m and set a World record of 36.94. She finished just 0.02 points ahead of defending World Sprint Champion Christine Nesbitt (CAN). Nesbitt was the only skater to finish both 1000 m races under 1:13 and to set a new record of 1:12:68 and took the silver. Hong Zhang (CHN) took bronze.

Stefan Groothuis (NED) beat four times World Sprint champion Kyou-Hyuk Lee, who took silver. Lee won the first distance, but Groothuis got the necessary points to win with his final 1000 m in 1:06.96. Tae-Bum Mo took bronze.

world allround championships

Sven Kramer and Ireen Wüst won the World Allround Championships in Moscow.

In the ladies’ field. Wüst successfully defended her title to become World Allround champion for the third time. Sáblikova stayed ahead of Nesbitt and took silver and Nesbitt got bronze. In the men’s field Kramer won thanks to his victories in the long distances and became the first post-war skater to win the title five times. Jan Blokhuijsen was the runner up, and a third Dutch competitor Koen Verweij, fourth in Budapest, managed to take bronze and managed to edge out Bøkko to fourth. Despite three podium finishes, home favorite and defending champion Ivan Skobrev finished fifth overall.

junior world championships At the Junior World Championships in Obihiro

ISU CONGRESS PREVIEW (JPN) the allround titles were won by home favorite Miho Takagi and Sverre Lunde Pedersen (NOR) in the men. Reigning champion Karolina Erbanová (CZE) finished in second place; but took the 500 m and 1500 m world titles. Takagi took the 1000 m title, Do-Yeong Park (KOR) won the 3000 m and the Korean ladies won the Team Pursuit. Lunde Pedersen won his second title in a row and repeated his wins in the 3000 m, 1500 m and 5000 m. The 500 m title was earned by Laurent Dubreuil (CAN), who earlier this season skated a junior world record in this distance. The 1000 m title went to Pavel Kulizhnikov (RUS). Norway won the men Team Pursuit.

world single distances championships

The season concluded with the World Single Distance Championships in Heerenveen.

Jenny Wolf was beaten for the first time in the 500 m in four years by Sang-Hwa Lee who won both races. Jing Yu (CHN) finished second and newcomer on the international podium was Thijsje Oenema (NED). Christine Nesbitt (CAN) kept her unbeaten status in the 1000 m. Jing Yu finished second and Margot Boer (NED) third. Nesbitt also took the 1500 m title for the first time. Defending champion Ireen Wüst (NED) finished with silver and her team mate Linda de Vries (NED) won her first medal with bronze. Martina Sáblíková won both the 3000 and 5000 m ladies winning her fourth title in a row in the 5000 m. Beckert got silver on both distances.

The bronze was awarded to Wüst in the 3000 m and Claudia Pechstein in the 5000 m.

Olympic Champion Tae-Bum Mo won the men’s 500 m. Michel Mulder (NED) finished in very close second only 0.01 second behind Mo. Pekka Koskela took the bronze. World Sprint Champion Stefan Groothuis won the 1000 m; like the previous season Kjeld Nuis got silver and Shani Davis (USA), after three wins in a row, took bronze. Denny Morrison (CAN) had his best race of the season taking the 1500 m gold. Only 0.05 seconds behind came Ivan Skobrev (RUS) and defending champion Håvard Bøkko received bronze finishing 0.01 behind Skobrev. Sven Kramer won the 5000 m edging out defending champion Bob de Jong to silver. De Jong won the 10000 m and Jorrit Bergsma took silver. Jonathan Kuck (USA) won bronze in both distances.

The ladies’ Team Pursuit podium of the last three years was CAN-NED-GER, but the Dutch ladies were faster than the Canadians and Olympic bronze medalist Poland took bronze.

The Dutch men won the Team Pursuit; the Dutch won all previous world titles except last year, when team USA won and who this year settled for silver and Team Russia took bronze.

The International Skating Union travels to Kuala Lumpur (MAS) for the 54th ISU Ordinary Congress on June 11 – 15, 2012. Over 350 participants are expected, including ISU Office Holders and delegations from Member Federations. Every Congress sees major decisions about the future and direction of the ISU. This year over 330 proposals have been submitted. The Congress begins on 11 June with a debate on the Constitution and General Regulations. Members covering Figure Skating and Speed Skating have two votes on each proposal whereas Members for Figure Skating or Speed Skating alone are entitled to one vote. Most important proposals require a two thirds majority of Members in favor in order to be accepted. Workshops are planned for the morning of Monday June 11. Tuesday and part of Wednesday will be dedicated to full Congress, then parallel Figure Skating and Speed Skating sessions. To conclude a plenary session will take place on Friday 15 June.

The Proposals

Some of the most important proposals from the ISU Council, Sports Directorate and Technical Committees are summarized briefly below. The full agenda has been published in Communication 1722 on the ISU website. www.isu.org.

General

Restructuring of the Union – In order to maximize future contract results and achieve the best economic situation for the ISU, the ISU Council proposes to keep all persons presently administering the ISU and hold the next Ordinary Congress with elections in 2016 (instead of 2014).

Sport Directorate – A proposal to restructure the Sport Directorate is put forward. The Directorate would consist of individual Sports Directors with specific functions.

Age limit for skaters – the ISU Council proposes to gradually implement a more consistent age limit for competing skaters across all disciplines.

Speed Skating

ISU World Sprint Speed Skating Championships, ISU World Junior Speed Skating Championships and ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships entry quotas changes are proposed for these Events.

Drawing Procedures at ISU Events - a number of format changes are proposed.

Racing Rules - amendments are proposed to better define «Cutting the inner line in the curve», «Crossing the lines of the designated competition lane» and «Exceptional Situations».

Short Track

ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, ISU European Short Track Speed Skating Championships and ISU World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships - a number of format changes, in particular but not limited to the Program and Entry Quotas are proposed.

Ties - Amendment to better define ties are proposed.

Starting procedures and false starts - the Technical Committee proposes to review the starting procedures and sanctions in case of false starts.

Single and Pair Skating / Ice Dance

Additional Level of difficulty – To introduce the Basic Level of difficulty (no features performed in an element) as currently regardless whether one feature or no feature is performed, the Level of difficulty is 1.

Music – Congress will decide whether vocal music in Single and Pair skating can be used and if Couples can bring their own music for some or all Pattern Dances.

Choreography and Base Values – the Single and Pair Skating and Ice Dance Technical Committees propose several changes by introducing fixed Base Values for jumps in Single skating and Choreography in Ice Dance, in order to make the programs and dances more entertaining and diverse.

Synchronized Skating

Creation of two new elements – it is proposed to introduce the Creative Element and the Choreographic Element which will both have a fixed Base Value and less restriction on levels allowing teams to include a variety of Elements and innovative choreography.

Referee’s examination – additional requirements to pass the Referee’s examination will be introduced.

Elements – to provide more freedom in Synchronized Skating elements that are currently considered restrictive.

Congress Program

Monday 11 June Opening of the Congress / Congress Workshops / Full Congress Tuesday 12 – Thursday 14 June Full Congress / Sections Figure Skating and Speed Skating Friday 15 June Full Congress and Closing Banquet

11

FIGURE SKATING Youth Olympic Games Figure Skating

Ladies Gold ElizavetaTuktamisheva Silver Adelina Sotnikova Bronze Zijun Li 4 So Youn Park 5 Anais Ventard

Points RUS RUS CHN KOR FRA

173.10 159.08 157.70 136.60 136.08

Men

Points

Gold Han Yan CHN Silver Shoma Uno JPN Bronze Feodosi Efremenkov RUS 4 June Hyoung Lee KOR 5 Niko Ulanovsky GER

Team Event

12

192.45 167.15 163.46 160.99 158.47 Points

Gold Team 4 Jordan Bauth USA

Shoma Uno JPN

Eugenia Tkachenka / Yuri Gulitski BLR Silver Team 2 Eveliina Viljanen FIN

Yaroslav Paniot UKR

Maria Simonova / Dmitri Dragun RUS Bronze Team 6 So Youn Park KOR Alexander Lyan KAZ

Estelle Elizabeth / Romain Le Gac FRA 4 Team 8 Sindra Kriisa EST

Timofei Novaikin FRA

Aleksandra Nazarova / Maxim Nikitin UKR 5 Team 1 Tina Stuerzinger SUI

Feodosi Efremenkov RUS

Millie Paterson / Edward Carstairs GBR

Ladies Men Ice Dance Ladies Men Ice Dance Ladies Men Ice Dance Ladies Men Ice Dance Ladies Men Ice Dance

16

16

Pairs

Points

Gold Xiaoyu Yu / Yang Jin Silver Lina Fedorova / Maxim Miroshkin Bronze Anastasia Dolidze / Vadim Ivanov 4 Caitlin Belt / Michael Johnson 5 Ielizaveta Usmantseva / Vladislav Lysoy

CHN RUS RUS USA UKR

Ice Dance

153.82 134.19 112.72 109.61 95.35 Points

Gold Anna Yanovskaya / Sergey Mozgov Silver Aleksandra Nazarova / Maxim Nikitin Bronze Maria Simonova / Dmitri Dragun 4 Rachel Parsons / Michael Parsons 5 Estelle Elizabeth / Romain Le Gac

RUS 146.96 UKR 131.68 RUS 125.22 USA 114.22 FRA 106.42

14

13

ISU WORLD TEAM TROPHY, 19 - 22 APRIL 2012, TOKYO (JPN) Team trophy

13

1 2 3

Team Japan Team USA Team Canada

4 5 6

Team France Team Russia Team Italy

ISU European Figure Skating Championships, 23 - 29 JANUARY 2012, SHEFFIELD (GBR)

Ladies 1 2 3 4 5

Carolina Kostner Kiira Korpi Elene Gedevanishvili Polina Korobeynikova Viktoria Helgesson

ITA FIN GEO RUS SWE

Points 183.55 166.94 165.93 164.13 160.82

Men 1 Evgeni Plushenko 2 Artur Gachinski 3 Florent Amodio 4 Michal Brezina 5 Tomas Verner

RUS RUS FRA CZE CZE

Points 261.23 246.27 234.18 229.30 225.36

Pairs RUS RUS RUS ITA GER

Points 210.45 193.79 171.81 158.99 154.99

Wenjing Sui / Cong Han CHN Caydee Denney / John Coughlin USA Mary Beth Marley / Rockne Brubaker USA Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford CAN Narumi Takahashi / Mervin Tran JPN

Points 201.83 185.42 178.89 171.76 171.11

1 Tatiana Volosozhar / Maxim Trankov 2 Vera Bazarova / Yuri Larionov 3 Ksenia Stolbova / Fedor Klimov 4 Stefania Berton / Ondrej Hotarek 5 Mari Vartmann / Aaron Van Cleave

ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, 7 - 12 February 2012, Colorado Springs (USA)

Ladies 1 Ashley Wagner USA 2 Mao Asada JPN 3 Caroline Zhang USA 4 Kanako Murakami JPN 5 Kexin Zhang CHN

Points 192.41 188.62 176.18 169.32 162.59

Men 1 2 3 4 5

Patrick Chan CAN Daisuke Takahashi JPN Ross Miner USA Adam Rippon USA Takahito Mura JPN

Points 273.94 244.33 223.23 221.55 217.16

Pairs 1 2 3 4 5

ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships, 27 February - 4 March 2012, Minsk (BLR)

Ladies 1 Julia Lipnitskaia 2 Gracie Gold 3 Adelina Sotnikova 4 Satoko Miyahara 5 Zijun Li

RUS USA RUS JPN CHN

Points 187.05 171.85 168.45 157.78 157.31

Men 1 Han Yan 2 Joshua Farris 3 Jason Brown 4 Denis Ten 5 Zhan Bush

CHN USA USA KAZ RUS

Points 222.45 221.97 214.90 208.20 196.06

Pairs CHN CHN RUS USA CAN

Points 175.69 167.48 153.66 150.55 141.76

1 Aliona Savchenko / Robin Szolkowy GER 2 Tatiana Volosozhar / Maxim Trankov RUS 3 Narumi Takahashi / Mervin Tran JPN 4 Qing Pang / Jian Tong CHN 5 Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford CAN

Points 201.49 201.38 189.69 186.05 185.41

1 Wenjing Sui / Cong Han 2 Xiaoyu Yu / Yang Jin 3 Vasilisa Davankova / Andrei Deputat 4 Haven Denney / Brandon Frazier 5 Margaret Purdy / Michael Marinaro

ISU World Figure Skating Championships, 26 March - 1 April 2012, Nice (FRA)

Ladies 1 Carolina Kostner ITA 2 Alena Leonova RUS 3 Akiko Suzuki JPN 4 Ashley Wagner USA 5 Kanako Murakami JPN

Points 189.94 184.28 180.68 176.77 175.41

Men 1 2 3 4 5

Patrick Chan CAN Daisuke Takahashi JPN Yuzuru Hanyu JPN Brian Joubert FRA Florent Amodio FRA

Points 266.11 259.66 251.06 244.58 243.03

Pairs

SYNCHRONIZED SKATING ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships, 13 - 14 April 2012, Göteborg (SWE) Teams 1 2 3

Team Sweden 1 Team Canada 1 Team USA 1

4 5 6

Team Finland 2 Team Russia 1 Team Finland 1

7 8 9

Team Canada 2 Team Sweden 2 Team Germany

10 11 12

Team Russia 2 Team USA 2 Team Italy

13 14 15

Team Japan Team France Team Switzerland

SPEED SKATING

Essent ISU European Speed Skating Championships, 6 - 8 January 2012, Budapest (HUN) Ladies Points 1 2 3 4 5

Martina Sábliková Claudia Pechstein Ireen Wüst Linda de Vries Diane Valkenburg

CZE GER NED NED NED

Men 1 Sven Kramer 2 Jan Blokhuijsen 3 Håvard Bøkko 4 Koen Verweij 5 Alexis Contin

NED NED NOR NED FRA

169.922 172.312 172.454 173.656 173.782 Points 156.197 156.513 158.234 158.644 159.093

Youth Olympic Games Speed Skating Ladies 500 m (combined times) Gold Silver Bronze 4 5

Mi Jang KOR Xiaoxuan Shi CHN Martine Lilloy Bruun NOR Suzanne Schulting NED Leia Behlau GER

Ladies 1500 m Gold Silver Bronze 4 5

Mi Jang KOR Sanneke de Neeling NED Sumire Kikuchi JPN Yuan Fu CHN Yelizaveta Kazelina RUS

Ladies 3000 m Gold Sanneke de Neeling NED Silver Rio Harada JPN Bronze Su Ji Jang KOR 4 Yelizaveta Kazelina RUS 5 Yuan Fu CHN

Mass Start Ladies Gold Silver Bronze 4 5

Sanneke de Neeling NED Su Ji Jang KOR Sumire Kikuchi JPN Yelizaveta Kazelina RUS Michelle Uhrig GER

Time 1:21.68 1:24.32 1:27.51 1:27.72 1:28.13

Men 500 m (combined times)

Time 2:08.17 2:09.54 2:11.33 2:11.94 2:12.90

Men 1500 m

Time 4:37.33 4:41.85 4:42.72 4:44.45 4:47.52 Time 6:01.06 6:01.13 6:01.24 6:01.47 6:03.09

Gold An Liu CHN Silver Roman Dubovik BLR Bronze Toshihiro Kakui JPN 4 Vasiliy Pudushkin RUS 5 Stanislav Palkin KAZ Gold Fan Yang CHN Silver An Liu CHN Bronze Seitaro Ichinohe JPN 4 Hyeok Jun Noh KOR 5 Bastijn Boele NED

Men 3000 m Gold Fan Yang CHN Silver Seitaro Ichinohe JPN Bronze Hyeok Jun Noh KOR 4 Peter Lenderink NED 5 Nils Van Der Poel SWE

Time 1:15.50 1:17.82 1:17.83 1:18.08 1:18.44 Time 1:54.20 2:00.28 2:00.30 2:02.19 2:02.28 Time 4:03.22 4:10.00 4:14.41 4:14.93 4:15.53

Mass Start Men

Time Gold Fan Yang CHN 7:10.23 Silver Seitaro Ichinohe JPN 7:11.45 Bronze Vasiliy Pudushkin RUS 7:12.83 4 Toshihiro Kakui JPN 7:13.10 5 Stanislav Palkin KAZ 7:13.35

Essent ISU World Cup Speed Skating – Final Standings

Ice Dance 1 2 3 4 5

Nathalie Pechalat / Fabian Bourzat Ekaterina Bobrova / Dmitri Soloviev Elena Ilinykh / Nikita Katsalapov Anna Cappellini / Luca Lanotte Ekaterina Riazanova / Ilia Tkachenko

FRA RUS RUS ITA RUS

Points 164.18 160.23 153.12 153.09 152.22

Ladies Overall Ranking 1 2 3 4 5

Christine Nesbitt Martina Sábliková Ireen Wüst Claudia Pechstein Jing Yu

CAN CZE NED GER CHN

Ladies 500 m

Ice Dance CAN USA CAN USA USA

Points 182.84 179.40 163.26 158.29 129.20

1 Victoria Sinitsina / Ruslan Zhiganshin RUS 2 Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin RUS 3 Alexandra Aldridge / Daniel Eaton USA 4 Anna Yanovskaya / Sergey Mozgov RUS 5 Gabriella Papadakis / Guillaume Cizeron FRA

Points 153.81 147.74 141.14 140.63 138.70

1 2 3 4 5

Tessa Virtue / Scott Moir Meryl Davis / Charlie White Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje Maia Shibutani / Alex Shibutani Madison Hubbell / Zachary Donohue

Ice Dance

1 Jing Yu 2 Sang-Hwa Lee 3 Jenny Wolf 4 Margot Boer 5 Thijsje Oenema

CHN KOR GER NED NED

Ladies 1000 m 1 Christine Nesbitt 2 Heather Richardson 3 Marrit Leenstra 4 Margot Boer 5 Ireen Wüst

CAN USA NED NED NED

Ladies 1500 m 1 2 3 4 5

Christine Nesbitt Ireen Wüst Marrit Leenstra Martina Sábliková Diane Valkenburg

CAN NED NED CZE NED

Ladies 3000 / 5000 m

Ice Dance 1 2 3 4 5

Tessa Virtue / Scott Moir Meryl Davis / Charlie White Nathalie Pechalat / Fabian Bourzat Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje Elena Ilinykh / Nikita Katsalapov

CAN USA FRA CAN RUS

Points 182.65 178.62 173.18 166.65 161.00

1 2 3 4 5

Martina Sábliková Stephanie Beckert Claudia Pechstein Diane Valkenburg Linda De Vries

CZE GER GER NED NED

Ladies Team Poursuit 1 2 3 4 5

Canada Russia Republic of Korea Poland Japan

Mass Start Ranking Ladies 16 17 18

Team Australia Team Czech Republic Team Croatia

19 20 21

Team Hungary Team Latvia Team Belgium

1 Mariska Huisman NED 2 Claudia Pechstein GER 3 Anna Rokita AUT 4 Foske T. van der Wal NED 5 Maria Lamb USA

Points 116,25 86,50 85,00 79,50 65,00 Points 960 890 869 555 534 Points 550 459 420 365 314 Points 510 450 401 276 265 Points 650 410 405 295 246 Points 390 355 320 265 150 Points 320 310 175 160 155

Men Overall Ranking 1 2 3 4 5

Kjeld Nuis Stefan Groothuis Shani Davis Håvard Bøkko Jorrit Bergsma

NED NED USA NOR NED

Men 500 m 1 2 3 4 5

Tae-Bum Mo Pekka Koskela Tucker Fredricks Jan Smeekens Joji Kato

KOR FIN USA NED JPN

Men 1000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Shani Davis Stefan Groothuis Kjeld Nuis Denny Morrison Sjoerd de Vries

USA NED NED CAN NED

Men 1500 m 1 Håvard Bøkko 2 Kjeld Nuis 3 Shani Davis 4 Denny Morrison 5 Ivan Skobrev

NOR NED USA CAN RUS

Men 5000 / 10000 m 1 Bob de Jong 2 Sven Kramer 3 Jorrit Bergsma 4 Håvard Bøkko 5 Alexis Contin

NED NED NED NOR FRA

Men Team Poursuit 1 2 3 4 5

Points 702 674 646 625 547 Points 600 580 486 394 359 Points 472 430 425 312 301 Points 510 440 435 308 300 Points 374 340 300 281 150

Netherlands Republic of Korea Germany USA Russia

Mass Start Ranking Men 1 Alexis Contin 2 Jorrit Bergsma 3 Jonathan Kuck 4 Arjan Stroetinga 5 Seung-Hoon Lee

Points 84,00 81,50 80,00 68,00 63,50

FRA NED USA NED KOR

Points 250 212 196 185 175

13

SPEED SKATING Essent ISU World Sprint Speed Skating Championships, 28 - 29 January 2012, Calgary (CAN) Ladies 1 Jing Yu 2 Christine Nesbitt 3 Hong Zhang 4 Margot Boer 5 Annette Gerritsen

14

Points 148.610 148.630 149.705 149.810 149.920

CHN CAN CHN NED NED

Men 1 2 3 4 5

Stefan Groothuis Kyou-Hyuk Lee Tae-Bum Mo Mika Poutala Shani Davis

Points 136.810 137.000 137.080 137.270 137.360

NED KOR KOR FIN USA

Essent ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships, 18 - 19 February 2012, Moscow (RUS) Ladies Points Men Points 1 2 3 4 5

Ireen Wüst Martina Sábliková Christine Nesbitt Linda de Vries Cindy Klassen

NED CZE CAN NED CAN

161.050 161.870 162.360 163.395 163.396

1 Sven Kramer 2 Jan Blokhuijsen 3 Koen Verweij 4 Håvard Bøkko 5 Ivan Skobrev

NED NED NED NOR RUS

149.327 149.614 150.085 150.134 150.332

ISU World Junior Speed Skating Championships, 2 - 4 March 2012, Obihiro City (JPN) Ladies Points Men 1 2 3 4 5

Miho Takagi JPN Karolina Erbanova CZE Bo-Reum Kim KOR Antoinette de Jong NED Do-Yeong Park KOR

Ladies 500 m

Time

1 Karolina Erbanova CZE 2 Hyun-Yung Kim KOR 3 Miho Takagi JPN 4 Kako Yamane JPN 5 Kate Hanly CAN

1:18.90 1:19.19 1:19.44 1:19.65 1:19.83

Ladies 1000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Time

Miho Takagi JPN Karolina Erbanova CZE Kate Hanly CAN Antoinette de Jong NED Bo van der Werff NED

1:17.69 1:18.14 1:18.82 1:19.43 1:19.92

Ladies 1500 m 1 2 3 4 5

Karolina Erbanova Bo-Reum Kim Pien Keulstra Do-Yeong Park Miho Takagi

Time

CZE KOR NED KOR JPN

2:00.45 2:00.67 2:01.03 2:01.10 2:01.24

Ladies 3000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Do-Yeong Park Bo-Reum Kim Pien Keulstra Miho Takagi Antoinette de Jong

161.296 162.575 163.096 163.151 163.309

Time

KOR KOR NED JPN NED

Ladies Team Pursuit

4:08.48 4:10.07 4:11.86 4:14.63 4:15.52 Time

1 Republic of Korea 2 Japan 3 Russia 4 Canada

3:07.36 3:13.67 3:14.41 3:16.02

1 2 3 4 5

Sverre Lunde Pedersen NOR Thomas Krol NED Simen Spieler Nilsen NOR David Andersson SWE Shota Nakamura JPN

Men 500 m 1 Laurent Dubreuil CAN 2 Tsubasa Hasegawa JPN 3 Pavel Kulizhnikov RUS 4 Woo-Jin Kim KOR 5 Tommi Pulli FIN

Men 1000 m 1 Pavel Kulizhnikov 2 Havard Lorentzen 3 Tommi Pulli 4 Laurent Dubreuil 5 Woo-Jin Kim

RUS NOR FIN CAN KOR

Men 1500 m 1 Sverre Lunde Pedersen NOR 2 Thomas Krol NED 3 Havard Lorentzen NOR 4 Tommi Pulli FIN 5 Kai Verbij NED

Men 5000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Sverre Lunde Pedersen NOR Simen Spieler Nilsen NOR Cheol-Min Kim KOR David Andersson SWE Emery Lehman USA

Men Team Pursuit 1 2 3 4

Norway Republic of Korea Netherlands Italy

Points 150.616 154.068 154.111 154.374 154.733 Time 1:11.12 1:11.77 1:12.04 1:12.29 1:12.67 Time 1:10.79 1:11.24 1:11.30 1:11.32 1:11.36 Time 1:49.14 1:49.80 1:50.40 1:50.40 1:50.47 Time 6:35.03 6:44.50 6:44.61 6:45.91 6:46.18 Time 3:54.02 3:55.69 3:56.34 3:58.94

Essent ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships, 22 - 25 March 2012, Heerenveen (NED) Men 500 m Time Ladies 500 m Time 1 Sang-Hwa Lee 2 Jing Yu 3 Thijsje Oenema 4 Heather Richardson 5 Christine Nesbitt

KOR CHN NED USA CAN

1:15.69 1:16.12 1:16.28 1:16.49 1:16.70

1 Tae-Bum Mo 2 Michel Mulder 3 Pekka Koskela 4 Joji Kato 5 Tucker Fredricks

KOR NED FIN JPN USA

1:09.64 1:09.65 1:09.82 1:10.00 1:10.04

Ladies 1000 m 1 Christine Nesbitt 2 Jing Yu 3 Margot Boer 4 Heather Richardson 5 Ireen Wüst

Time 1:15.16 1:15.98 1:16.16 1:16.30 1:16.33

CAN CHN NED USA NED

Ladies 1500 m 1 2 3 4 5

Christine Nesbitt Ireen Wüst Linda de Vries Cindy Klassen Yekaterina Lobysheva

Time

CAN NED NED CAN RUS

1:56.07 1:56.40 1:57.08 1:57.30 1:58.13

Ladies 3000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Martina Sábliková Stephanie Beckert Ireen Wüst Claudia Pechstein Linda de Vries

Time

CZE GER NED GER NED

Ladies 5000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Martina Sábliková Stephanie Beckert Claudia Pechstein Olga Graf Diane Valkenburg

CZE GER GER RUS NED

Ladies Team Pursuit 1 2 3 4 5

Netherlands Canada Poland Russia Germany

4:01.88 4:04.09 4:04.87 4:04.99 4:06.33 Time

Men 1000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Stefan Groothuis Kjeld Nuis Shani Davis Denny Morrison Tae-Bum Mo

NED NED USA CAN KOR

Men 1500 m 1 Denny Morrison 2 Ivan Skobrev 3 Håvard Bøkko 4 Shani Davis 5 Stefan Groothuis

CAN RUS NOR USA NED

Men 5000 m 1 Sven Kramer 2 Bob de Jong 3 Jonathan Kuck 4 Jan Blokhuijsen 5 Alexis Contin

NED NED USA NED FRA

Men 10000 m

6:50.46 6:56.64 7:04.01 7:10.22 7:13.61

1 Bob de Jong 2 Jorrit Bergsma 3 Jonathan Kuck 4 Moritz Geisreiter 5 Håvard Bøkko

Time 2:59.70 3:00.51 3:03.32 3:03.45 3:03.63

1 2 3 4 5

Time 1:08.57 1:08.79 1:08.83 1:09.04 1:09.09 Time 1:46.44 1:46.49 1:46.50 1:46.64 1:46.65 Time 6:13.87 6:15.26 6:16.28 6:16.82 6:21.44 Time

NED 12:53.91 NED 12:57.71 USA 13:12.66 GER 13:21.10 NOR 13:23.70

Men Team Pursuit Netherlands USA Russia Canada Norway

Time 3:41.43 3:43.42 3:43.62 3:44.38 3:46.33

ISU Junior World Cup Speed Skating – Final Standings Men 500 m Points Ladies 500 m Points 1 2 3 4 5

Letitia de Jong NED Karolina Erbanová CZE Tatyana Karannikova RUS Vanessa Bittner AUT Kako Yamane JPN

Ladies 1000 m 1 Antoinette de Jong 2 Letitia de Jong 3 Hyun-Yung Kim 4 Nana Takagi 5 Vanessa Bittner

NED NED KOR JPN AUT

Ladies 1500 m 1 2 3 4 5

Pien Keulstra NED Do-Yeong Park KOR Nana Takagi JPN Antoinette de Jong NED Risa Takayama JPN

Ladies 3000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Do-Yeong Park KOR Pien Keulstra NED Nana Takagi JPN Risa Takayama JPN Anna Chernova RUS

371 370 349 342 260 Points 290 263 190 158 142 Points 450 370 295 211 210 Points 390 370 231 226 180

Ladies Team Pursuit

Points

1 Republic of Korea 2 Japan 3 Netherlands 4 China 5 Kazakhstan

310 280 205 177 160

1 Woo-Jin Kim KOR 2 Tsubasa Hasegawa JPN 3 Tommi Pulli FIN 4 Pavel Kulizhnikov RUS 5 Niels Olivier NED

Men 1000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Woo-Jin Kim Thomas Krol Tommi Pulli Jin-Su Kim Pavel Kulizhnikov

KOR NED FIN KOR RUS

Men 1500 m 1 Thomas Krol 2 Jin-Su Kim 3 Fan Yang 4 Kai Verbij 5 Pavel Kulizhnikov

NED KOR CHN NED RUS

Men 5000 m 1 2 3 4 5

Thomas Krol David Andersson Fan Yang Simen Spieler Nilsen Cheol-Min Kim

NED SWE CHN NOR KOR

Men Team Pursuit 1 2 3 4 5

Republic of Korea Netherlands China Kazakhstan Japan

630 570 416 332 219 Points 350 250 240 235 230 Points 339 325 262 260 245 Points 310 265 261 224 190 Points 300 290 230 151 140

short tRack ISU Junior World Cup Speed Skating – Final Standings Mass Start Men

Mass Start Ladies

Points 1 Do-Yeong Park KOR 2 Vanessa Bittner AUT 3 Antoinette de Jong NED 4 Pien Keulstra NED 5 Ye-Won Nam KOR

300 240 133 128 90

1 Kai Verbij 2 Fan Yang 3 Jin-Yeong Lee 4 Woo-Jin Kim 5 Kristian R. Fredriksen

Points 235 205 130 120 115

NED CHN KOR KOR NOR

ISU European Short Track Speed Skating Championships, 27 - 29 January 2011, Mlada Boleslav (CZE) Ladies 1 Arianna Fontana 2 Jorien Ter Mors 3 Martina Valcepina 4 Bernadett Heidum 5 Olga Belyakova

Ladies Relay Youth Olympic Games Short Track Speed Skating Ladies 500 m Gold Suk Hee Shim Silver Aili Xu Bronze Nicole Martinelli 4 Sarah Warren 5 Sumire Kikuchi

KOR CHN ITA USA JPN

Time 44.122 44.593 46.594 48.273 48.337

Ladies 1000 m Gold Suk Hee Shim KOR Silver Aili Xu CHN Bronze Sumire Kikuchi JPN 4 Nicole Martinelli ITA 5 Arianna Sighel ITA

Time 1:31.661 1:33.351 1:34.254 1:47.451 2:13.756

Men 500 m Gold Su Min Yoon Silver Hyo Jun Lim Bronze Hongzhi Xu 4 Thomas Insuk Hong 5 Kei Saito

Time

KOR KOR CHN USA JPN

42.417 42.482 42.637 42.782 45.600

Men 1000 m Gold Hyo Jun Lim Silver Su Min Yoon Bronze Hongzhi Xu 4 Kei Saito 5 Milan Grugni

KOR KOR CHN JPN ITA

Time 1:29.284 1:29.428 1:29.576 1:30.142 1:40.766

Mixed NOC and Mixed Gender 3000 m Team Relay Gold Xiucheng Lu Aili Xu Jack Burrows Jung Hyun Park Silver Hongzhi Xu

Chunyu Qu Aydin Djemal

Mariya Dolgopolova

4:21.713

4:24.665

Bronze

4

Time

Yoann Martinez Melanie Brantner Suk Hee Shim Denis Ayrapetyan Sumire Kikuchi Elisabeth Witt Thomas Insuk Hong Yin-Cheng Chang

4:26.352

1 Arianna Fontana 2 Martina Valcepina 3 Qiuhong Liu 4 Kexin Fan 5 Marianne St-Gelais

ITA ITA CHN CHN CAN

Ladies 1000 m 1 Yui Sakai JPN 2 Jianrou Li CHN 3 Elise Christie GBR 4 Lana Gehring USA 5 Marianne St-Gelais CAN

Ladies 1500 m 1 Ha-Ri Cho 2 Eun-Byul Lee 3 Lana Gehring 4 Katherine Reutter 5 Valerie Maltais

KOR KOR USA USA CAN

Points 4800 3942 3930 3690 3312 Points 4202 3312 3230 3152 2169 Points 5040 4302 2952 2800 2632

Ladies Relay

Points

1 China 2 USA 3 Japan 4 Italy 5 Canada

4000 2810 2720 2230 2086

Men 500 m 1 Olivier Jean 2 Charles Hamelin 3 Wenhao Liang 4 Qiuwen Gong 5 Jon Eley

CAN CAN CHN CHN GBR

Men 1000 m 1 Yoon-Gy Kwak 2 Jinkyu Noh 3 Olivier Jean 4 Charles Hamelin 5 J.R.Celski

KOR KOR CAN CAN USA

Men 1500 m 1 Jinkyu Noh 2 Da Woon Sin 3 Yoon-Gy Kwak 4 Ho-Suk Lee 5 Charles Hamelin

KOR KOR KOR KOR CAN

Men Relay 1 2 3 4 5

Canada Republic of Korea China Russia Great Britain

1 2 3 4 5

Time 4:15.392 4:15.406 4:16.767 4:16.983

1 2 3 4

Sjinkie Knegt Niels Kerstholt Thibaut Fauconnet Semen Elistratov Vladimir Grigorev

NED NED FRA RUS RUS

Men Relay Netherlands Russia Germany Great Britain

Points 63 47 47 42 39

Time 6:46.675 6:47.864 6:55.952 PEN

ISU World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships, 24 - 26 February 2012, Melbourne (AUS) Ladies 1 Suk Hee Shim 2 Hyun Sun Hwang 3 Se Jung Ahn 4 Xue Wang 5 Agne Sereikaite

KOR KOR KOR CHN LTU

Ladies Relay 1 2 3 4

Republic of Korea China Russia Canada

Points 115 76 42 39 26

Time 4:14.800 4:17.711 4:23.275 4:23.367

Men

Points 84 81 63 34 26

1 Se Yeong Park 2 Hyo Been Lee 3 Tianyu Han 4 John-Henry Krueger 5 Dequan Chen

KOR KOR CHN USA CHN

Men Relay

Time 4:02.440 4:02.922 4:06.420 4:23.250

1 2 3 4

Republic of Korea China USA Hungary

4:24.360

ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, 9 - 11 March 2012, Shanghai (CHN)

KOREAN AIR ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating – Final Standings Ladies 500 m

1 Netherlands 2 Italy 3 Hungary 4 Germany

Men

Points 107 76 43 29 21

ITA NED ITA HUN RUS

Points 4000 3240 2970 2798 2719 Points 5312 3896 3264 2000 1996 Points 6000 3280 2978 2240 2088

Ladies 1 Jianrou Li 2 Valerie Maltais 3 Arianna Fontana 4 Ha-Ri Cho 5 Kexin Fan

CHN CAN ITA KOR CHN

Ladies Relay 1 2 3 4

China USA Republic of Korea Canada

CHN ITA USA

Ladies 1000 m 1 Ha-Ri Cho 2 Jianrou Li 3 Valerie Maltais

Points 3600 3080 2968 2522 2362

1 Valerie Maltais 2 Arianna Fontana 3 Marie-Eve Drolet

Time 44.438 44.467 44.815 Time

Time

CHN 2:23.217 CHN 2:23.411 CAN 2:23.474

Ladies 3000 m

Men 1 Yoon-Gy Kwak 2 Jinkyu Noh 3 Olivier Jean 4 Charles Hamelin 5 Da Woon Sin

Time

CAN 4:55.408 ITA 5:01.187 CAN 5:03.387

KOR KOR CAN CAN KOR

Men Relay 1 Canada 2 Netherlands 3 Republic of Korea 4 Japan

KOR 1:31.283 CHN 1:31.325 CAN 1:31.350

Ladies 1500 m 1 Jianrou Li 2 Qiuhong Liu 3 Marie-Eve Drolet

Time

4:16.303 4:17.223 4:17.240 4:22.414

Ladies 500 m 1 Kexin Fan 2 Arianna Fontana 3 Lana Gehring

Points 60 47 44 42 35

CAN CAN KOR

Men 1000 m 1 Yoon-Gy Kwak 2 Jinkyu Noh 3 Charles Hamelin

Time

Time

KOR 2:15.661 KOR 2:15.755 KOR 2:15.861

Men 3000 m 1 Yoon-Gy Kwak 2 Jinkyu Noh 3 Da Woon Sin

Time 41.077 41.186 41.479

KOR 1:27.772 KOR 1:34.463 CAN 1:55.181

Men 1500 m 1 Jinkyu Noh 2 Yoon-Gy Kwak 3 Da Woon Sin

Time

6:42.570 6:42.626 6:42.629 6:44.586

Men 500 m 1 Olivier Jean 2 Charles Hamelin 3 Yoon-Gy Kwak

Points 102 76 52 42 26

Time

KOR 4:40.401 KOR 4:40.407 KOR 4:41.000

15

PAST MASTER DR. GERHARDT BUBNIK (CZE): BORN 1935 Gerhardt Bubník competed in Figure Skating winning a number of medals including Czech Junior Champion in 1953.

Aged 23 he retired from competition, to become a judge and subsequently he judged and refereed at several ISU Championships and Olympic Winter Games.

In 1969 Dr Bubník was the first Czech to obtain an LLM from Harvard Law School, and was awarded the prestigious Adizon Brown Prize. Dr. Bubník became Member of the ISU Appeal Commission in 1988 and was ISU Legal Advisor from 1996 to 2010. In 1999 he became Chair of the Arbitration Commission of the Czech Olympic Committee. In 2007 he received the Olympic Order, the highest award from the Olympic Movement, for 50 years of service and in 2009 he was awarded the Prize for Fight Against Doping for his pioneering work as President of the Czech National Review Body under the WADA Code. Since 2010 he is an ISU Honorary Member.

In 1990 Dr. Gerhardt Bubník became partner in Bubník Myslil & Partners law firm and is an internationally recognized expert in matters pertaining to sport and ethical rules, including doping cases.