ISU 58th Ordinary Congress 2022 Special - interviews with outgoing President Jan Dijkma, incoming President Jae Youl Kim, and Ashley Arthingal, ISU co-ordinator of the new World Ice Skating Day

[Music] Hello and welcome to a special edition of the ice skating podcast brought to you after the ISU's 58th Ordinary Congress 2022 in Pouquet, Thailand. I'm Luke Norman, it's a real pleasure to be back and chatting to you all and a real pleasure as always to be joined to by Nick More. How are you, Nick? I'm very well. Thanks, Luke. We're not in the tropical climates of Thailand, unfortunately. We're in rainy Scotland, but it's always a pleasure to chat to you and we've got some really interesting news about the future of our sports, are you sure? Haven't we? Yeah, we do. I look good in Thailand, isn't it? Very jealous. See all the pictures coming back from there, but it's great to be on the pod again, and we've got a really interesting interview with the outgoing president of the ISU Jan Daikuma of the Netherlands, who served brilliantly in their role for the last six years. That's right, and we're also excited to bring you a few words from the incoming president, Mr. Jay Yul Kim of the Republic of Korea. Later on in the pod, we've also got a unique insight into the first ever world ice skating day, taking place on the 4th of December. That's an exciting initiative and will be a really fantastic day for the sport, but let's start off with the president. I have the pleasure of speaking to Jan Daikuma, and he's a really interesting guy, isn't he? Yeah, it was great to get a preview of that. Thanks for sending it over Nick. What impresses me about him? He's such a calm figure, isn't he? Long career in politics, really interesting career in politics, but ISU-YZ, he served the sports really well in so many capacities for what more than 30 years, I guess, now. So really, we all owe him a ton of thanks for that. Yeah, we do. He's been a huge figure in ice skating for years now. We have to say, when he was initially elected to the presidency in 2016, he can't really have foreseen that the crazy amount of issues you'd have to deal with during his two terms as presidents. Can you imagine? Who could have predicted everything that's happened? Obviously, I mean, no one could have predicted that, but just how do you deal with COVID and all the impact there? And obviously, more recently, the invasion of Ukraine and the Camilla Valle Ava controversy, it's not stopped for President Daikuma, is it? And it was really interesting. You touched on all those things in your interview, and it was really interesting to hear his view. Yeah, yeah, we did discuss all that, and what shines through really is the fact that you just dealt with it very professionally and calmly without any knee-jerk reactions, and that's interesting. Yeah, and of course, final ever congress as president, our game president, and they reached a really significant decision that hit the headlines worldwide. Yeah, that's right. A vote was taken, and the ISU will raise the minimum age for competitors at its senior events from 15 to 17 to protect the skaters, physical and mental health and emotional well-being. This is something that's been in the work since 2018. It was first proposed that the 57th ISU ordinary congress in 2018 didn't quite get the majority required then to be including on the agenda. It was then due to be discussed again that the 2020 congress, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic, but this congress delegates did vote to gradually increase the age limit to 17 by 2024, 2025. So there's no change next season, and then increased the age of 16 by 2023, 2024. The congress also agreed to increase the age limit from 14 to 15 at the ISU World Junior Speed Skating and Short Truck Speed Skating Championships. I had a lot to take in there. It's all on the website, but for me, it's excellent to see so many countries about the move. I was really drawn to Eric Radford's statement afterwards. He's a Canadian skater and the ISU Athletes Commission Chair, and he said the life of an athlete is short and intense. Their experience in this short phase sets the platform for the rest of their lives physically, spiritually and emotionally, and that's important, and that's really what they're trying to protect here. Spot on, isn't it, and obviously no one would know better than someone like Eric with me, and so fascinated to hear that. And let's hear from Jan Dijkman now. He's the man with all the views, so here he is. So it's great to have you with us. You've obviously dedicated almost 30 years of your life working for the ISU in many roles, and especially as president for the last six years. How much of an honour has that been and how can you sum it up in terms of the evolution and the major changes that you've experienced? Thank you very much for these good questions. First off, it was really a great honor and a privilege to serve the ISU during almost 30 years, and especially of course the last six years as a president. Important was the focus we had, the mission we had on three pillars. Development is a very important focus. Secondly, marketing of motion and then court governance. How did your style of leadership contribute to the ISU, and what did you take away from this experience? I must say if you ask what style of leadership I would say I tried to combine leadership and wisdom. Leave the ship combined with wisdom instead of combined with the Magheveli, I would say every inch. If you asked my style of leadership, I would summarize it in this way, and then of course it was continuously 24 serving working hearts, because in my opinion you are not an excellent international federation, but becoming it every day. So this was a really flow of hardworking in the past years. What makes the ice skating community for you so special in comparison to some of the other Olympic sports, and what are the strengths of the ice skating world in which the ISU should invest in the future? Of course the ice skating disciplines of the ISU are figure skating really very important, short track speed skating and long track speed skating and single skating, so we have four very important disciplines and three of them are Olympic. So both figure skating, short track speed skating and long track speed skating, and this is really very important, you can consider this as a strength of the ISU with a very high profile. So this is for sure a reality, and we have to invest also in the future a lot in both development and marketing and promotion for all disciplines of the ISU. And you strongly encourage development initiatives, increasing the number and quality of skaters, coaches and officials around the world, and increasing the number of nations that can produce these really competitive skaters. Are you satisfied with the results you've achieved so far, and is there still much more to do? Yeah, this is really a good point. Development was one of our highest priorities, I mean making major steps forward in this field, I would like to mention especially the centers of excellence, we created Worldwide 11 centers of excellence, and for example in Bangkok here in Thailand is really really important, because this is not important only for Thailand, but for the Asian region to upgrade the ice skating position in Asia, because in my opinion Asia has a very high potential. On top of that we have, for example, a center of excellence also in Beijing in China, and this is because you know China is a big country, 1.4 billion inhabitants. So this is, this is meant as a legacy of the Olympic Winter Games 2022 in Beijing. So if we achieve to have a very professional center of excellence as well in Beijing, it will be a great potential also in Beijing, but 11 in total worldwide. So this is, you cannot imagine how important this is, I would like to give an example. We have now since some years, a center of excellence in Salt Lake City in the US. And here you have the transfer from innaid skating, from countries like Colombia and the countries fairly strong in the field of innaid skating, the transfer to speech skating, and the good example is Irene Jackson. She started only two years ago and now she won a gold medal in Beijing during the Olympics 2022. So this is just an example of how important these centers of excellence are for the future of the issue, in the field of development. Yeah, they've been absolutely brilliant. And of course marketing and promotion have represented a crucial part of your mission as well, trying to engage in new skating fans in innovative and digital ways. Do you feel there's a greater connectivity with the fans today than a few years back? Yes, also in the field of marketing and promotion, we've made important steps forward in the digital field. And especially I would like to mention here, the Elon and platform, readily growing. Really important, you can imagine in the past two years with the COVID-19 situation, we could use this platform and we could go on with the important work. Absolutely. Good governance has also been central to your aims. Can you tell us what progress has been made in those areas? Yes, this is, this was the third pillar during my presidency and this is also a very high priority. Good governance in the world of sports is a must. So here we have set the targets internationally and I would mention especially the sustainability profile and we want to go on in this field by reducing 50% by 2030. So this is this is also when we achieved a lot but we want to go on because also in this field it is a race without finish. Yes, of course, it is, yeah. And finally moving on to the Congress, how was your final Congress as president of the ISU over there in Thailand? It was really not an easy Congress at all in the current situation, the current circumstances you can imagine with the COVID-19 situation worldwide. But Thai Federation convinced us to meet in person and I'm really glad that we did it. Of course, it was a great pleasure to meet again in person despite the difficult circumstances. Also the war in Europe. I would like to remind that we had a very successful Congress here in Thailand and I'm really glad that we came through through a professional approach with the support of a very high quality of the ISU staff of the Thai Federation here in Thailand. So we could make important decisions and important elections here in Thailand. And of course one of those important decisions was the proposal to raise the age limit for senior skaters from 15 to 17. That was accepted for the sake of protecting the physical and mental health and emotional well-being of the skaters. How do you feel about the vote and how do you think it will affect the ISU in the future? I would say we made really very important decisions and I would like to mention first of we have the age limit of 75 for office holders and this will remain. So for me it's important there's also the reason that I'm stepping down because it's my opinion that we at a certain moment you need younger people for the democratic process also for this kind of positions. So I'm glad we were able to have new elections with younger people. And secondly I would like to mention the decision regarding the individual figure skating, regarding the age, increasing the age limit from 15 to 17 and two years which is not only an important decision I would say it's an historic decision. So this week also did here in Thailand in the interest of this case figure skating. I really glad that we made it also in this way. And you mentioned the pandemic and some of the difficulties already that we've had the controversies of Beijing, Ukraine you've already mentioned. You've had a lot of unexpected issues to deal with during your time as president. How have you got through these challenges? Must have been tough. This is only possible through a professional approach. This is only to be done with high quality of support. You don't do it alone. So could people around you with a very high quality? As I said with a very professional approach, this is I'm really glad that we could make it, that we could meet in person again here in Puket in Thailand at a right moment, really at a right moment. So I'm glad that we could make it happen here in Puket. Excellent. You must be ready for a holiday after all the all the stuff that's been going on the last year and the Olympic year. What are your plans for the coming weeks and for the next few years? I would say first of regarding my successor, as I said in the beginning, I would like to I also have told them to continue with leadership combined with wisdom. This is first of really important. In close cooperation with the ISU members worldwide, the federation's worldwide, we need because they have the venues, they have the audience, they have all the volunteers because the volunteers, they are the biggest sponsors in the world of sports in my opinion. And then it's a 24/7 job. No doubts. As I said, you are not a good or an excellent international federation. You are becoming it every day. Yes. You mentioned I am not going on holiday yet. This is this is but not no longer this 24/7 flow. I start cooling down but I must say also counting my blessings but not a whole day. It's my intention to write down my experience I had in the past years. So this is for the near future which I will do what's my intention to do. Fantastic. We look forward to reading that. So thank you so much for joining us. Great stuff. Thanks very much to the outgoing president for his time. Nick, as we discussed before playing that clip, lots of fascinating things. I suppose one thing that really hits me afterwards hearing that again is he isn't going to go on holiday quite yet. Wow. I think I need at least to cover years on the beach after everything he's dealt with but he's going to stay busy and 77 going strong and no doubt be a source of good advice for the incoming president. That's right. He's been such a steady leader and that's not always the case at sports federation as we both know working in the field or indeed in politics. I'm sure the incoming president, Gerald Kim will be delighted to have him around. Yeah and Jan said to me it's great to have a young and energetic candidates like Mr Kim coming into the role and the 12th president, isn't he? But first ever, I assume, president from outside Europe which is significant now reckon. Yeah, it's big isn't it? Skating is so massive in Asia. It's fantastic that the region is now going to be represented at the highest level. You've only got to think how huge figure skating is in Japan and China, how important short truckers in the new president's home nation. So it's exciting having him coming in with a new perspective. And his vision obviously really chained with all the members didn't he? He won quite comfortably 77 votes around one well beyond the majority needed of 60 and I think this mandate of together we can go further which maybe a few people might have seen and read up on just hit the spot for the sport. He spoke really passionately at the congress about his vision for the future and I think he convinced everyone including us. Of course, of course, Mr. President, we would vote for you. Not that we have a vote, but anyway, let's hear from him now speaking at a virtual press conference soon after that vote. Laying out a bit more meat on his vision and explaining just what it is that he intends to do and the direction he wants to see skating take. So I've spoke to many of the members in the past couple months leading up to the election. Listen to the members what they want and what they expect from the ISU and where we want to be in the future. And based on what I've heard from the members, my manifesto is based on the slogan go ISU growth and opportunities through innovation, safeguarding of our athletes and unity. So growth we want obviously want to grow the sports and we want to provide more opportunities to the to different athletes in many different countries and we want to do this on the basis of innovation and when I say innovation, I'm not only talking about the technology, but the innovative way of working together and safeguarding of athletes is very important because athletes are our key assets and we need to do everything we can to protect and develop our athletes. ISU is a big international organization with long history. We have many members throughout the world and we are one Federation with the love of sports, our sports skating. Though we united and we want to move towards the goal towards the future that we are sparring together with not only the members, but with the Secretary and the council members. Thank you very much, Mr Kim. Can you maybe also tell us because today is a historical day for the ISU as well where we have our first president who is from outside Europe. What does that mean and what does that tell you about the future for the ISU? Well, I think well, first of all, I'm very honored to have this opportunity to serve the ISU as president and I think the fact that I'm elected as the first non-European person to lead the ISU reflects how open and how open-minded we are and how progressive we are as an organization and we will continue to work together to develop our sports throughout the world. In terms of what I want to do is that the first thing that I want to do is to work with the members, work with council members and the Secretariat and the member federations to develop a long-term strategy plan defining where we want to be in the future, what steps we need to take to get there. So we will prioritize the actions that we need to take with the clear goals and timeline and we will track our progress to ensure that we get where we want to be in the future. I want to share with you the important step that we've taken, the ISU has taken, which is not related to the value of a case but the one of the key decisions that we made during this congress was increasing the minimum age of athletes participating the events. So our minimum age went from 15 to 17 because we as an organization are most concerned about the wellness, well-being of our athletes, not only physical well-being but also the mental wellness of the athletes. So we've been talking about this age issue for the past couple of years but last September the council made a decision to really look into the issue in great detail what would be the right steps that we should take. So the we formed a working group headed by the head of our medical commission conducted a study looking at the relations between the injury or the mental health, mental wellness and athletes with age and we made a recommendation that it will be best for the interest of our athletes, it will be best to move the minimum age to 17 gradually. In the process we also, our athletes commission actually actively participated by doing the comprehensive survey, the athletes throughout the world and also the coaches getting their feedbacks on what will be the right age for the athletes to participate in the IS event. Yeah that was really interesting, these very strong isn't the in those five priority areas, growth, opportunity, innovation, safeguarding, unity, it's really placing the sport and the athlete to the heart of everything. Yeah, more opportunities, more skaters, more countries, I mean it sounds simple, I suppose it is simple but it's really the keys, isn't it? Yes and wasn't it interesting too as well to hear about how the decision was reached to increase the minimum age of skaters, it's such a big topic, such an important topic, lots of talking's been done about it but the ISU took a dispassionate clinical look at it, got the medical commission involved, really studied the impact on mental and physical wellbeing and then getting the athletes views and the coaches voices in there as well. It was non-stop though in Kit wasn't it, lots going on. Yeah it certainly was, Mr Toronto Spelley from Norway was re-elected as the first vice president speed skating, while Mr Benoit Lavois from Canada was elected vice president figure skating with 55 votes. For each of these branches a team of five council members was also newly elected or re-elected. I'm pretty cool to see, I mean we mentioned him earlier, Mr Erick Radford, here on Chang 2018 Olympic champion, representative of the athletes commission, joining the ISU council, first time in history that that's happened. So that's congratulations to him, he had 174 votes and we'll take his position out which is great and if people are interested in seeing all the results of all the elections that went on just check out ISU.org and you'll see them there. Great for Erick and great for the sport and what else will be good for the sport is the first ever World Ice Skating Day. Oh yes Nick, excellent link there. It's very good, he's really exciting, this isn't it, we mentioned it at the beginning and just a cool initiative and one I know we can't wait to see take place and it's great to have Ashley Artingle who's the World Ice Skating Day coordinator for the ISU. We've got him on now to explain just what the whole day is all about and what you can expect. In a few words, World Ice Skating Day is one day dedicated to ice skating all over the world in the form of a global festival where the main focus is development which is breaking more kids into into the ice. So it's going to be one day, first Sunday of every December, every year and the idea is to have this one day dedicated to ice skating for ice skating lovers, ice skating fans, professional ice skaters, recreational amateur skaters, skating enthusiasts who've never tried skating before, who are first-timers or beginners who haven't interest but have never done it before. So the main idea is to get them involved, to get them on the ice and through this we aim that we get the children's attention, they come to the ice, they have a nice time, they learn how to skate, how to balance and then eventually they come back to the rings, they come back to the clubs, they take up skating, that's a long-term goal. But the idea is to celebrate ice skating all over the world and to introduce this sport to a wider audience. So I was here to educate the members, I was here, we had a booth, we had few merchandising samples to show how World Ice Skating Day would look like and how they can have merchandising ideas around it, how the website functions and also to be more involved with the ice remembers because for us for the success of this event we would work closely with the ice remembers, all sorts of ice remembers, the ones who are into competitions but also the ones who have a great passion for ice skating but are relatively not known for winter sports and who have a lot of tremendous potential but they have to and they want to scale the sport and through this World Ice Skating Day initiative in their respective countries they can be more empowered to do that. So typically a World Ice Skating Day event would definitely differ depending on the event organizers and their accessibility to ice strings, their own strengths but an ideal World Ice Skating Day event would be a day-long event or several hours on December 4. It should ideally begin with initiation or first-time sessions for first-time skaters and beginners to get them a feel of the ice and how to skate then definitely after talking to members I will also come across several ideas that they would be the coaches would be also interested to speak to amateur and semi-professional skaters you know to provide them sessions on fitness and nutrition and injury prevention then they would be a free skating with music for the entire family so the idea is to have a day out for the entire family of one Sunday, food trucks, music and several members have also mentioned of their interest to have a gala or an exhibition of their local/national/popular skaters which would serve as a source of inspiration for the local crowd. Check out and stay tuned on World Ice Skating Day.com and the World Ice Skating Day social media which is our Instagram account for updates regarding the event and stay tuned and we look forward to a fun day out together filled with festivities and celebrations to have a global festival together. Big thanks to Ashley there that was a good stuff loop wasn't it? I love the idea of an annual global festival of ice skating who what's not to like there just getting as many kids out on the ice as possible isn't it having fun being exposed to these sports why not why not why not it's really important isn't it and I think as Ashley said so many reasons behind doing this so it should be really good couldn't agree more free skating lessons time for all the family special gala's brilliant I can't wait do we do we have to wait till December for it? Well we should plan something shouldn't we maybe we could do a pod from the middle of an ice ring or something a bit of a special and get loads of ice skating fans on the pod would be really good yeah we need to sharpen up our skills don't we but as Ashley said it's all about encouraging small skating nations too so we need to get Scotland going let's get down to a rink in class go in the mess lock mess and make some good stuff happen I am in let's do it great stuff and don't forget as Ashley said you can find all the info you need on www.worldiscatingday.com about how you might plan events whether you're an ice skating rink or or just interested in seeing what's happening near you and you can keep an eye on the socials as well for more information and and I'm sure you can contact the ISU directly if you have specific questions no doubt we'll have some more on world ice skating day throughout the rest of this year and in the final build up to to what should be a really good celebration of the sport yes it really should and that's about all we've got time for this episode so thanks to everyone for listening hope you're enjoying us summers off or time away from the the cold face of skating but no doubt like us your desperate to get back to the ice soon so we'll hopefully speak to you soon yeah great stuff thanks so much Nick really good see you again and take care um all the listeners and we'll see you next time thanks very much