Irina Rodnina, the three-time Olympic figure skating champion, dismissed the level of a Challenger Series competition underway in Tokyo, Japan, saying it amounted to little more than a low-tier local contest, according to Sport24.
Rodnina, who also serves as a deputy in Russia's State Duma, was asked to assess the short-program performance of Russian skater Pyotr Gumennik, who finished 13th. Two other Russians competing in Tokyo fared better, with Vladislav Dikidzhi placing second and Evgeny Semenenko sixth.
Rodnina said everything in life moves in waves, with rises followed by falls and falls followed by rises, and that nothing unusual was happening with Gumennik. She said it was still the start of the season, that he was skating a new program, and that he remained caught up in the euphoria of his strong recent Olympic results. She added that he still had plenty of time to regroup and produce good results.
Gumennik's Olympic pedigree
Gumennik finished sixth at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a result that underpins Rodnina's confidence that his early-season stumble in Tokyo is not a lasting setback.
Asked directly about the standard of the Tokyo event, Rodnina said the tournament was a "housing-office championship," a Russian expression used to describe a very low-level, amateur-grade competition, roughly equivalent to calling it a backyard or parish-league affair in English.
Flag dispute in the stands
The Tokyo event has also drawn attention over the display of national symbols. Japanese fans in the crowd showed a Russian flag while Semenenko was skating his short program.
Spectators were subsequently told over the venue's public address system not to display Russian flags, even though there is no official ban on Russian symbols at the competition.
Russian figure skaters are competing in Tokyo under neutral status, a condition that has applied to Russian athletes at International Skating Union events since Russia's exclusion from international competition following the invasion of Ukraine.
The Challenger Series event runs in Tokyo from September 4 to 6, 2026.
