Next week’s World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo, in which four Colorado Springs skaters will compete, may get canceled due to the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on Friday, the International Skating Union announced Sunday.
The competition is scheduled to begin next Monday and concludes March 27. The ISU will make a decision no later than 4 a.m. MDT Monday.
In a statement, the Lausanne, Switzerland-based organization said it wants to keep the World Championships as planned but “the recent developments since Saturday, in particular the developments in the Fukushima nuclear plant, are very worrisome and also resulted in travel advisories from many countries to avoid traveling to Japan until the situation is settled.”
The American delegation, which includes about 40 people, is scheduled to leave Saturday for Tokyo. The group includes four skaters who train at Colorado Springs’ World Arena: U.S. men’s champion Ryan Bradley, U.S. pairs champion Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin and U.S. ladies runner-up Rachael Flatt.
U.S. Figure Skating spokeswoman Scottie Bibb said the site of the Worlds, the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, was not damaged. Neither were many of the delegations’ hotels.
“A lot of other things going on there that are of concern,” Bibb said. “The building’s fine but this is a country in crisis.”
Called Japan’s worst crisis since World War II, Friday’s 8.9-grade earthquake hit northeast Japan. In Tokyo, trains couldn’t run, cell phones stopped working and people were trapped in elevators.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
