ISU Director General Colin Smith on Safeguarding and Athlete Welfare

Colin Smith is the Director-General of the International Skating Union. He joined me to talk about the ISU’s approach to safeguarding and athlete welfare. As I’ve talked about on this podcast many times, the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of athletes has been a recurring problem in figure skating. According to survivors I’ve spoken to, the response from institutions has been flawed and fragmented, allowing abusers to continue in the sport while victims are forced out. In the last two years, the ISU has reorganized its investigative and safeguarding processes into a new independent integrity unit, and is committing more resources to protecting athletes. In this interview, Colin Smith goes into detail on these initiatives, what is coming next, and his hope that athletes will come to trust the Integrity Unit to support them when abuse happens.  

YouTube: https://youtu.be/bBjnRzp3PrU

Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1csgV7z0oFS6HyP8638LqoAgHxjbGRlxY66CvLmMjuck/edit?tab=t.0

The Integrity Unit’s reporting form is available at: https://skating.integrityline.com/

I have a playlist of prior episodes dealing with abuse and safeguarding on the Future of Figure Skating YouTube channel, including interviews with safeguarding officer Jatta Muhonen, and skating survivors Soléne Mazingue and Olivia Oliver. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe2pdWMwNXt4pm8L2zW34K3seT4t0RXt0&si=SP1iQF4_FD5IWvz4

Other resources for survivors and advocates:

https://www.athletesempowered.ca/

https://theathletesurvivorsassist.org/

https://justicenoabuse.org

You can reach me at fsfuturepodcast at gmail.com or on Instagram at FutureFSPodcast. You can also support my work by making a contribution at ko-fi.com/futureoffigureskating. Remember to subscribe to the future of figure skating on YouTube and your podcast platform of choice and share it with your friends.