Sophie Joline von Felten heads to figure skating nationals free from Olympic pressure

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Sophie Joline von Felten heads to figure skating nationals free from Olympic pressure

Ice skating had been a big part of Inna von Felten’s childhood in Russia.

Her father, Yuri, was a city speedskating champion in Moscow. And when Soviet sports officials visited her kindergarten to look for potential athletes, a key part of the country’s talent identification system, they thought the smallish Inna fit the physical parameters for a pairs figure skater. She would skate pairs from age 4 to 13, her competitive career ended by a knee injury.

Yet the initial motivation for Inna to have her only child, Sophie Joline, try figure skating came from elsewhere.

Inna and her Swiss husband, Daniel von Felten, were on a Christmas holiday trip to Paris when they saw a pop-up seasonal rink on the Champs-Elysees. The setting was so magical Inna imagined skating there one day with her daughter, and she found out young children were allowed on the adult part of the rink with a parent if they could skate unassisted.

“I had her try skating to make my wish come true,” Inna said.

What followed was a clear example of needing to be a little careful about what you wish for. The wish has morphed into a dream come true for her daughter, and it has turned the family’s life into a bi-continental adventure.

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Adding more seats to its gravy train costs the IOC way more than it seems

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Adding more seats to its gravy train costs the IOC way more than it seems

Sometimes things are hidden in plain sight.

And sometimes you find them deep in a publicly available document.

And sometimes they come to your attention because the keen eye of a colleague points them out, as, in this case, David Owen did for a recent blog on insidethegames.biz.

And the case in question is just another example of how International Olympic Committee members and those non-members who serve on IOC commissions live off the fat of the land.

And all these people are volunteers, ostensibly inclined to get involved with what is pretentiously called the Olympic Movement (capital “M” in IOC documents) out of an altruistic desire to help athletes in Olympic sports.

Altruism, it turns out, has its financial rewards, shared by an ever-growing number of people, as Owen detailed.

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