Update: ISU Congress postponed to 2021, decision upcoming on rescheduling 2020 figure skating worlds (very likely, "no”), plus my exclusive info on bigger future worlds

Update: ISU Congress postponed to 2021, decision upcoming on rescheduling 2020 figure skating worlds (very likely, "no”), plus my exclusive info on bigger future worlds

This week, there will definitely be a decision on one major International Skating Union event cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic.

That will be followed soon after by a decision on another – even if the fate of the latter, the 2020 World Figure Skating Championships, seems pretty much a foregone conclusion already.

The ISU asked its members to vote on the future of the organization’s biennial policy-making Congress, which had been scheduled for this June 8-12 in Phuket, Thailand. The ballot offered three choices: 1) postponement until June 2021; 2) definite cancellation; 3) abstention.

Votes are due today. Once they are in, the ISU Council will meet by teleconference to discuss the result and matters related to the 2020 worlds, the 2020-21 season and seasons after that.

No 2020 worlds and more skaters at future worlds are involved.

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Staying afloat financially: for Olympic organizations, loans may be short-term fix in uncertain times

Staying afloat financially: for Olympic organizations, loans may be short-term fix in uncertain times

In these days of near total uncertainty about the impact and duration of the coronavirus pandemic on our lives, even moments of clarity are lost in the blur of the big, frightening picture.

We know the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games now are supposed to begin July 23, 2021. Emphasis on supposed to. Not only a Cassandra would look at the pandemic’s uncontrolled and growing scope and prophesy that there is a good chance those Olympics will not take place then – or ever.

Especially given this from Allen Sills, the National Football League’s chief medical officer, in an NFL.com story Thursday: "As long as we're still in a place where when a single individual tests positive for the virus that you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them in any shape, form or fashion, then I don't think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport." And the story continued with Sills saying it is too early to think about dealing with large groups of fans until a vaccine is available.

Yet because trying to look forward is far more rewarding, especially in terms of mental health, all the players hoping for a 2020/1 (or 2020One) Summer Games are searching for ways to get there.

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U.S. Olympic CEO deserves credit for decision to take pay cut, but she and board still should be shown the door

U.S. Olympic CEO deserves credit for decision to take pay cut, but she and board still should be shown the door

When it comes to tone-deafness and managerial ineptitude, I thought I had seen and heard it all in my nearly 40 years covering the leadership and operations of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

I should have known better.

I feel that way even though U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief Sarah Hirshland executive has, to her credit, agreed to take a voluntary pay cut of an unspecified amount from her $600,000 annual salary, as she revealed in a Friday statement to Globetrotting.

The USOC may have changed its name to the USOPC last July, but it has not changed the spots that have made its operations a confounding detriment to the athletes it is supposed to serve.

The USOPC bottomed out morally in its untenable decision to ask Congress for $200 million of the federal coronavirus stimulus bill funds, as first reported Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal.

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Even in (finally) arriving at the right choice by postponing 2020 Olympics, actions of top U.S. and IOC officials were inglorious

Even in (finally) arriving at the right choice by postponing 2020 Olympics, actions of top U.S. and IOC officials were inglorious

Now that sanity has prevailed, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been moved to 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic (but will still be called the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the International Olympic Committee’s parallel universe), what can we take away from the way the decision was reached and about its ramifications?

A handful of thoughts:

1. The IOC’s abysmal handling of its messaging over the last month will be a case study in how not to do public relations.

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IOC vice-president DeFrantz says she has no official word yet on 2020 postponement

IOC vice-president DeFrantz says she has no official word yet on 2020 postponement

International Olympic Committee vice president Anita DeFrantz of the United States said Monday she had not yet received any official word that a final decision on any postponement of the 2020 Olympics has been made.

“If that is the case, then you know more than a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee,” DeFrantz said via telephone from her home in Santa Monica, Calif. “It would be news to me.”

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