Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin will spin in Georgian dance

Well-known Russian figure skaters Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin joined the list of domestic athletes who, against the backdrop of international sanctions, decided to change their sports citizenship. Dancers Davis and Smolkin, who participated last year in the Beijing Olympics and were considered an extremely promising duo, after a whole season without competition, move to the Georgian team.

The Bureau of the Executive Committee of the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) approved the transfer of the dance duo Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin to the Georgian national team. In the FFKKR, “Kommersant” clarified that the basis for such a decision was an official request about Davis and Smolkin from the Georgian Figure Skating Federation, he arrived at the end of May. Head coach of the Russian national team Elena Chaikovskaya, commenting “RIA News” the situation with the skaters, she said, “that they haven’t competed and haven’t trained with us for a year and a half and won’t train, so we didn’t spend any money on them, so we let them go.”

Shortly after that, the head of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, Rati Bregadze, said at a briefing after a meeting of the government of the country that his department was ready to launch the procedure for granting citizenship to Davis and Smolkin. This will happen after the corresponding appeal of the skaters.

This is a rather significant event. The FFKKR often allows Russian skaters to change sports citizenship.

But until now, these permits were received only by athletes who had meager chances to break into the national team or did not claim to get into it at all, and therefore, to major tournaments.

In other countries, they received a much higher status. For example, thanks to such a change, Anastasia Gubanova, invited by Georgia, became the winner of the 2023 European Championship in women’s single skating.

Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin are a story of a slightly different kind, although, as explained in the FFKKR, on a formal basis – due to missing the season – they dropped out of the national team. These skaters are young by dance standards (partner – 20 years old, partner – 23 years old) and until recently were considered an extremely promising duet. Last year, Davis, the daughter of the famous coach Eteri Tutberidze, who, at the turn of the past and present decades, revolutionized women’s skating by preparing four Olympic winners, individual and team – Yulia Lipnitskaya, Alina Zagitova, Anna Shcherbakova and Kamila Valieva – and a whole a group of figure skaters with the most difficult technical content, and Smolkin made it to the Russian team for the Beijing Olympics and took 14th place there. It was assumed that they could soon take leadership positions.

However, in this case, the motivation of athletes is quite understandable. Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin have joined the already rather long list of domestic athletes who have changed sports citizenship or initiated its change in the conditions of international isolation: Russian sports ended up in it immediately after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on the industry.

The regime was weakened by the March recommendations of the International Olympic Committee on the admission of Russians, but they contain very strict clauses that complicate admission, and besides, not all federations follow these recommendations. The list includes, for example, the well-known chess player Alexandra Kosteniuk, the silver medalist of the previous Olympics held in Tokyo in 2021 in rowing Anna Prakaten, the titled short track skater Sofia Prosvirnova, the leader of the track and field athletics team in stayer running Sardana Trofimova, the promising swimmer Anastasia Kirpichnikova, freestyle wrestler Dauren Kurugliev, who has already won the European Championship in Zagreb under the Greek flag. The International Skating Union (ISU) will discuss the issue of the return of Russian athletes either in June or in the fall, and it is not known what position he takes. Kommersant’s source in the FFKR does not exclude that next season the figure skaters performing under its auspices will again have to limit themselves to domestic competitions.

Meanwhile, the change of citizenship provides an opportunity to compete in top tournaments. Interestingly, its probability in relation to Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin was actively discussed back in 2022.

True, the prevailing version was that they would try to get into the US national team – the country where Davis and Smolkin have been living and training in recent years. A Kommersant source familiar with the situation explained to Kommersant that “the choice in favor of Georgia is more practical.” The fact is that in the US dance team there is very tough competition. Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the 2023 World Championship, two more duets – Carolyn Green with Mike Parsons and Christina Carreira with Anthony Ponomarenko – were in the top ten. In the Georgian team, Davis and Smolkin will apparently compete only with Maria Kazakova and Georgy Revia, 13th in the world championship.

Alexey Dospekhov