Saturday, October 02, 2010

That Simple?

There is buzz around the Internet that Evgeny Plushenko has been reinstated as evidenced by his participation in the Japan Open Competition.

It's not quite that simple.

Ineligible skaters can compete at the Japan Open (I presume this is why they call it 'Open'). The Japanese Federation invited skaters to compete, both eligible and ineligible. Plushenko and Buttle were invited to compete and both the Canadian and Russian Figure Skating Federations were notified of their participation but this does not grant them eligibility. The Entries section of the announcement for the event states:
The eligible skaters will be invited through respective ISU Members. The ISU Member
that the ineligible skaters formerly represented will be notified of their participation. The
list of entries is on the attached Exhibit A.

But...Plushenko has written the Russian Federation and asked for reinstatement. He was stripped of his eligibility by the ISU after passing up the World Championships and doing shows instead without consent from the Russian Federation. He had the opportunity to appeal but didn't. But now he is asking the Russian Federation to help him out in getting his eligibility back.

"Today I wrote a letter to the figure skating federation chief Alexander Gorshkov. I’m asking the ruling body to contact ISU to help me restore my amateur status. I received a personal invitation from the organizers of the tournament in Japan, which is due to take place there on October 2. I'm currently preparing for this tournament and believe that ISU will allow me to compete there."

The ISU did allow him to compete...but it didn't restore his eligibility status to compete in regular ISU competition (i.e Cup of Russia, Europeans, Worlds, etc.).

I have a hard time seeing how Plushenko gets his eligibility back. If he had appealed when he had the chance I'm near certain he would have managed to wiggle out of it but now it seems like everyone's hands are tied. If he does get his eligibility back it will have to be some 'behind-closed-door' back room deal.

And the plot thickens...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

one word - Putin

Aaron said...

Right! I'm totally unwilling to rule out that he could get his eligibility back...but it's going to take a Senior Kremlin official to do it...and a fresh coat of paint at the ISU headquarters funded by some mysterious account in Perm!

Anonymous said...

If you read some FS forums you´ll see that nice people already explained about 10000000000000 times what´s up with Plushenko´s reinstatement, why and how did he lose his eligibility, etc. Any idiot should have understood it by now.
I’ll give you some credit and I presume that you just didin´t bother to do a research!

Maria said...

Above all, the translation of Plushenko's interview is incorrect - he asked the Russian Skating Federation to forward his application to ISU for renewal of his status as eligibility skater - for all future competitions, not only for Japan Open!
- original russian interview: http://www.allsportinfo.ru/archive.php?id=44204
- translation: http://evgeni-plushenko.com/eng/news/37.htm

Second, he has not appealed within 21 days, because he had no arguments to overturn the ISU decision at the "Court of Arbitration for Sport", and not wanted further aggravation relations with the ISU!

Third, and most importantly! For Plushenko's violation, according to the regulations of the ISU is ALLOWED to ask for the return to the "eligibility" status, provided that the ISU then will be decided on what the time limit will be punished him - one year or less! As for doping (which is much more serious violation) gets up to 2-3 years of prohibition, I do not see what is the problem that Plushenko can compete already in 2010/2011 season!

All this information can found here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/winter_sports/8939725.stm
- official Communication of Russian Skating Federation - russian: http://fsrussia.ru/news/84_evgenij_plyushenko_appelyaciya_anons_isu/
english translation: http://evgeni-plushenko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=205&start=80#p36004
- others...
http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-09-08/plushenko-wont-relinquish-sochi.html
http://evgeni-plushenko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=205&start=100#p38558
...

Finally - to me is incomprehensible such kind of political blindness and chauvinism, that you think Plushenko can regain his status only through Pustin?!
What if he returns by the most normal way, with help of ISU rules themselves? Will your "conspiracy theories" still exist, despite the facts?
Will then your obvious hatred towards Plushenko's will be smaller? Will you be professional journalist and a fan of FS, or you will continue to behave as some primitive hater of one champion, what is Plushenko?!

PLEASE - BE PROFFESIONAL! BE FAN OF FS, REGARDLESS FROM WHERE COMES A SKATER!

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

one word - Putin"
OMG, that is ridiculous!Putin? Or may be Medvedev?)))
Actually Plushenko has a right to ask the ISU to restore his status. And BTW he never lost the right to take part in Cup of Russia)))

Anonymous said...

Oh, of cause, he can't take part in Cup of Russia but still can take part in National Champ...

Aaron said...

I'm never going to win with Plushenko fans....

If Plushenko can get his eligibilty back through regular means...more power to him.

But I can't see the ISU just overturning their decision after he choose not to appeal it.

It would be like a boss telling an employee, give me a good reason not to fire you or your fired...failing to produce a good reason...get fired...but then turn around and ask your boss to rehire you. Doesn't make sense.

Anonymous said...

Actually, you are correct about that, Aaron, you will never win with Plushy fans. ;-)

You should research this more because Plushenko can be reinstated without there being anything underhanded or unethical about it. Check out the links the previous poster provided.

Sillya said...

"""It would be like a boss telling an employee, give me a good reason not to fire you or your fired...failing to produce a good reason...get fired...but then turn around and ask your boss to rehire you. Doesn't make sense."""

CAS is the court that athletes appeal mostly to fight back their right, like wrong doping control, stripped of a medal etc. Then there is reason to appeal in the original decision. This right it is given to everybody. But it is a long and frustrating process to go in court against the decisions of the body an athlete belongs.

What is more sane and wise to do, is wait the appeal period to be over and then re-apply for the reinstatement according to the rules that the Union has set, and yes surprise!-they give the right to a skater to be reinstated, because Plushenko belongs in the category "ineligible but with reinstatement application possibility" according to their decision.

What it doens't make sense is the inability to grasp the obvious that is written in ISU rules. But you choose to get driven by your personal preferences, if you want to be a journalist this will be a grand problem, I am sorry because your blog is very nice to read but my friend here you went wrong completely. Just admit you did not have a research, cause what you are implying is completely nonsense and insulting. Anything else will sound even worse, especially if you cannot "grasp" it, it does not favor you.
Just read FSU, there were plenty of non - Pluschenko fans explaining the same thing the so called Pluschenko fans are telling you. And some people bothered to read and post the ISU paragraphs, something you did not do.
I really hope you are not just informed and prefer to state something driven by your personal skater preference, because you did just that.

Maria said...

"I'm never going to win with Plushenko fans....

If Plushenko can get his eligibilty back through regular means...more power to him."


Without accurate facts - never!
With malicious comments - also.

No power - just law and justice.