Drastic changes to come in the world championships format?

Starting in the 2020/2021 season, there will most likely be only one long track speed skating championship instead of the usual three championships format.

By Jackob Savard

Photo: Schaats Foto’s

The actual format is composed of the Single distances championships, the Sprint championships and the Allround championships but the International Skating Union (ISU) is working on a way to put everything in the same event.

Here’s a part of what you can read in the ISU Communication No. 2156:

The current structure of the ISU Speed Skating Calendar consists of 3 World Championships at senior level. This is different from the other Speed Skating Discipline and ISU Branch (only 1 Championships) and from other winter sports, where some of them are organizing World Championships only every second year. In Speed Skating, the annual (except for Olympic seasons) Championships create too many champions and not sufficient attention for each of the three different types of World Championships. At the same time, teams cannot afford travelling to and focusing on all the different Championships. The revised standardized calendar, implemented as from the season 2014-15, has improved the overall structure of the Speed Skating season, by creating a 3 weeks' Championships in the "Olympic timeframe" period, but also created a big gap in a prime part of the winter season (second half of December, first half of January), when many people watch sport during their season holidays. Thus, the idea is to restructure the ISU Events calendar, to accommodate the World Cups more equally over the competition season (with different programs) and every year, at the end of the season (end of February in the “Olympic time-frame period”), to present to media, spectators and sponsors only one big tournament. The best possible program for the annual edition of the Championships will be decided by the Congress 2020, considering a broadest possible participation of the ISU Members and at the same time the attractiveness of the format for venues, TV audiences and sponsors. A Congress decision on the principle to have one ISU World Speed Skating Championships per season will allow the Technical Committee to focus on sports development in order to find an optimal format of the Championships including commercial aspects.The format for the Championships from season 2020-21 shall be decided by the ISU Council not later than 2 years before the first day of the Event concerned.

What are your thoughts on the topic? What kind of format should the ISU use for the world championships?

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