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≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Olympic Winter Games 2026: Milan Cortina ● Following its success at the Court of Arbitration for Sport on bobsled, luge, skeleton and skiing, the Russian Curling Federation is readying an appeal of the ban by the World Curling Federation.
In contract to the “neutral athlete” approach by the International Olympic Committee for individuals, it has continued with a recommended ban on all Russian and Belarusian teams. Both World Curling and the International Ice Hockey Federation have kept Russian and Belarusian teams out of their tournaments.
Russian Curling Federation chief Dmitry Svishchev told the Russian news agency TASS: “We haven’t filed a lawsuit yet. But we’ve decided with the Russian Olympic Committee to file a lawsuit with the CAS. This will be done before the New Year. All the documents for the filing are ready.”
The World Curling Olympic Qualification Event is coming up soon, however, from 5-18 December in Kelowna (CAN).
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As soon as the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS) statement on the process for “neutral” athletes in its events was published, the Russian Cross Country Skiing Federation was ready for action. Coach Yegor Sorin told TASS:
“We sent the international federation a list of athletes well in advance; it’s practically the entire national team. The next World Cup stage, which will take place this weekend in Trondheim, Norway, will definitely pass us by; we won’t have time to register. Next week, Davos will host the World Cup stage, so we’ll see.
“After Switzerland, there will be the Tour de Ski, which will take place in Italy. I can’t yet assess the likelihood of participating in these competitions, but we are ready to compete in any competition that the FIS allows us to participate in.”
A complication for Sorin is that the FIS regulations require that, as “Individual Neutral Athletes,” the athletes themselves must send a request to be considered as a “neutral,” not their federation.
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FIS board member Martti Uusitalo (FIN) told national broadcaster YLE that “The FIS already has a list of athletes from Russia and Belarus who meet the neutrality criteria. As far as I know, successful Russian skiers currently do not meet the neutrality criteria.”
This would specifically include star cross-country skier Alexander Bolshunov, the nine-time Olympic medalist from the 2018 and 2022 Winter Games.
● Collegiate Sports ● The Rules Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives approved Monday the advancement of six bills to the House floor, including H.R. 4312, the “SCORE Act” or, in full, the “Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act.”
According to the Congressional summary, the SCORE Act “provides a framework for the compensation of student athletes for the use of their name, image, or likeness (NIL). This includes addressing certain elements of the court approved agreement to settle the In re College Athlete NIL Litigation (i.e., House settlement).” The bill’s provisions include:
● “[S]tatutorily prohibits institutions, conferences, or interstate intercollegiate athletic associations (e.g., the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)) from restricting the ability of a student athlete to enter an NIL agreement”;
● “[R]equires institutions of higher education that generate $20 million or more in annual revenue from the institution’s intercollegiate athletics activities to (1) provide counseling and medical benefits to student athletes, and (2) establish and maintain at least 16 varsity sports teams”; and
● “Under the bill, student athletes may not be considered employees of an institution, conference, or interstate intercollegiate athletic association.”
The SCORE Act is supported by the NCAA, the large collegiate conferences, and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. Its statement emphasized, “The SCORE Act represents meaningful progress to strengthen the future of college sports and preserve pathways essential to the Team USA pipeline. We urge the House of Representatives to pass The SCORE Act in an effort to bring greater stability to the collegiate sport environment.”
Key to the USOPC’s support is the provision that the larger schools be required to maintain the current 16-sport minimum for the Football Bowl Subdivision, ensuring broad sports sponsorship despite revenues coming almost exclusively from football and basketball.
● Canoe-Kayak ● The International Canoe Federation celebrated the opening of its new headquarters in Budapest (HUN), expanding the Hungarian capital as the site of another sports governing body.
World Aquatics announced a major move to Budapest in 2024 and broke ground in October on a combined headquarters and training center to open in 2028. Who will be next?
● Figure Skating ● Olympic men’s champion Nathan Chen, the pioneer of the quadruple-jump era, has been voted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Chen won three World Championships golds in 2018-19-21, won three straight ISU Grand Prix Finals in 2017-18-19 and was six-time U.S. champion from 2017 to 2022. He was the first to land five quads in one program, in 2017 and six quads in a single Free Skate, in 2022.
He graduated from Yale University in 2024 and is pursuing a career in medicine.
Chen’s coach, Rafael Arutyunyan, is also being inducted, for his more than 50 years of coaching and success, including fellow Americans Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen, Ashley Wagner, Adam Rippon, Mariah Bell and many more.
U.S. Army musician Joseph Inman, the man chosen by the International Skating Union for a committee to create a new scoring system after the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic scoring debacle, was also voted in. He was a figure skating judge from 1986 to 2018 and was recognized by the ISU with its Gold Award of Merit.
All three will be formally inducted on 9 January in St. Louis, at the U.S. Figure Skating National Championships.
● Football ● The Copa America is supposed to be the South American championship tournament, but it was reported Tuesday that after the Copa was held in the U.S. in 2016 and 2024, it may be held there again in 2028.
As InsideWorldFootball.com observed, “the money coming out of the American market is simply too big to ignore.” However, the placement of the Copa America in the U.S. again is complicated by the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, with the men’s preliminary football matches to also be played outside of the state of California. But those locations have not yet been announced.
Argentina and Ecuador are also possible sites, but the Inside World Football story asked, “Is it time for CONCACAF and CONMEBOL to consider merging?”
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The U.S. men’s National Team will tune up for the 2026 FIFA World Cup with three matches against strong opposition next year, against no. 8 Belgium on 28 March in Atlanta, then no. 6 Portugal in Atlanta on 31 March.
A match against an opponent to be named later is slated for 31 May in Charlotte, North Carolina and then 6 June vs. no. 9 Germany at Solider Field in Chicago in its final pre-World Cup action.
● Shooting ● The International Shooting Sport Federation announced its candidates for its men’s Shotgun athletes of the year, including American star Vincent Hancock, the four-time Olympic champion in Skeet.
In 2025, Hancock won the Worlds gold in men’s Skeet for the fifth time, missing only one shot in the final. The winner, from among Hancock and four others, will be announced Friday.
● Tennis ● U.S. star Serena Williams, now 44, registered once again for the anti-doping testing pool, a required step to return to active play in professional tennis. A six-month testing period is required before a player can return to professional tournaments.
She retired in September 2022, now only as a 23-time Grand Slam title winner, but also a 14-time winner in Doubles and a four-time Olympic gold medalist, in 2012 in Singles but also in 2000-08-12 in Doubles.
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