Country Changes in Figure Skating - Pairs and Ice Dancing

Pairs and Ice Dancing

It is different in pair skating and ice dancing. Whereas single skaters can move as they choose, pair and dance skaters are often constrained by their need to have someone with whom to skate. More and more, pair and ice dancing teams are becoming multi-national as pair skaters and ice dancers are no longer restricting their search for a partner to their own borders.

This, combined with the fall of the Soviet Union, has led to a phenomenon that many in skating circles refer to disparagingly as Rent-A-Russian. A male ice dancer from the former Soviet Union is paired up with a lady from a different country. In less successful couples, the male is often much more experienced than the female, and the differences in their skill levels often leads to tension and the dissolution of the partnership. In more successful couples, the two are more evenly matched, even though the Russian may still be acting as a ringer. The family of the lady often pay all the bills for the man in an attempt to keep the man from moving on to a different partner. While not all rented Russian partnerships are successful, they have made their mark on skating. Between 1993 and 2008, there was at least one multi-national couple on the ice-dancing podium every year at the United States Figure Skating Championships, and in all but two of those years, at least one of those couples was a Russian/American mix.

In pair skating, Japanese ladies have had success in switching countries. This has historically been mostly American/Japanese pairings, but Japanese women are now competing for Russia and Canada in pair skating at the highest levels.

Country hopping is not just restricted to one nationality or country. As skating becomes more of a global sport, more and more pairings are multinational, leading to citizenship problems. Because the International Olympic Committee requires citizenship in order to represent a country in the Olympics, pair and dance teams must weigh the risks of being able to compete at the Olympics against keeping their citizenship.