Hosting Competitions in the Time of COVID By Kent McDill
In Alena Lunin’s mind, it was time. After cancelling competitions in March and August due to concerns over the spread of COVID19, Lunin decided it was time to give it a shot. Skaters needed to skate, competitors needed to compete, and the skating world in the United States needed to come together again.
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o Lunin, the skating director for the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Skating Club, put all of her efforts into creating the Battle of the Blades, which was held Oct. 2-4 at the SportONE Parkview IceHouse. Despite only having two weeks for registration, 243 skaters participated in the event, making it the largest skating competition in the country since March 1, 2020. Lunin has conducted competitions in Fort Wayne in the past, but this one was different because she had to consider an entirely new set of needs and requirements in order to make the event safe from the threat of the coronavirus. “I felt I know what needs to be done to have a safe environment,” Lunin said. “But I also know how important it was for all level skaters to have an opportunity to be able to skate and show their programs and to give them all something to look forward to.” Lunin has worked as a member of U.S. Figure Skating
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committees to determine how to proceed with competitions amid continuing coronavirus flares. She also found herself cancelling events in March and in August in Fort Wayne because the threat of spreading the virus was too great. But her work on those two earlier events allowed her to come up with a plan for the October event.
The details
There is one element all skating competitions include: a sea of humanity. There are skaters and coaches and judges and parents and grandparents and chaperones and skating fans, and they are all indoors. Lunin’s task was to limit the number of people who came within six feet of each other, and to limit the time any participant, coach or attendee spent inside the facility. So she started with the most difficult chore: limiting spectators. Unlike other competitions, where a skater
