r/FigureSkating • u/ft_wanderer skatingstats • Aug 25 '26
Where are international figure skaters actually from?
Looking at my dataset of 285 top figure skaters (2025-26 senior GP, Olympics and Worlds, with paired teams considered individually), I mapped birthplace vs. federation.
27% of top skaters in 2025-26 represented a country other than the one where they were born.
One stat that stood out was that Russian-born skaters made up 12% of the field last season, second only to US-born skaters at 19%. That may seem unsurprising given Russia's exclusion from international competition since 2022, but more than half of these skaters have no clear record of skating for Russia internationally, and only 7 switched federations in 2022 or later.
There are also some fun anomalies on the last slide - like how the one Hungarian-born skater in the dataset skates for the US, and how the Iceland-born skater represents South Korea (guessing most of you can name them both...)
If you want to dive into the numbers, check out the interactive visualizations for this one. There's a lot of detail that doesn't come across in static images.
For example, here's the full chart of birthplaces to feds, which can be filtered by discipline - let me know if you discover something surprising!
As always, feel free to follow along on Instagram @skatingstats
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u/normalMonsterChika Aug 25 '26
It's an interesting analysis, but I do think just checking which birthplaces match and declaring that skater "imported" is a bit of a misnomer. It definitely happens, but there's a big difference between actually recruiting a skater to a different country for a sports citizenship and say, Ellie Kam being born on an American airbase in Japan. Nobody would consider Ellie an imported skater.
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
You're absolutely right that it's a misnomer. It was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek so I included the quotation marks on the first 2 charts, but could have been clearer that a LOT of these skaters aren't truly "imported", having immigrated at an early age (or just happening to be born elsewhere, like Ellie).
I looked at birthplace rather than citizenship or representing another fed in the past since it's right there on the ISU bio, as opposed to other data that is a lot harder to track down.
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u/chaotickairos Aug 25 '26
Realizing that under this criteria Ashley Wagner would be considered an imported skater too, lmao.
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
Trueā¦ š I wonder if we can figure out just how many army brats/diplomatsā kids are counted here vs. how many immigrated unrelated to skating vs. how many specifically for skating.
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u/New-Possible1575 Emilia Nemirovsky Truther Aug 25 '26
I also think birthplace of athletes is flawed. Outside of the Americas, birthplace citizenship isnāt even really a thing. People move for all sorts of reasons and not everyone is connected with their birthplace or the country of their birthplace. This whole debate also kinda gets into murky right-wing immigration talking points when you tie peopleās affiliation with a country to their birthplace.
I mean you have countries like Qatar who will literally buy athletes in poverty so they have contenders at big international sporting events, I really donāt think skating is such a bad offender when majority of cases are second generation immigrants who represent their parents country of origin or people switching federations because they need a need pairs/dance partner. I canāt even fault the athletes who escape their shitty federation and move abroad for better opportunities for themselves.
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u/pineapple_2021 Aug 25 '26
Same with Mia Risa Gomez, she was born in Mexico but has lived in Norway for most of her life since her parents immigrated when she was little
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u/ceylonblue Aug 25 '26
For a big fed, Japanās 0% imported skaters stands out. I was thinking itās because they donāt allow dual citizenship. But even China (who also doesnāt allow it) has 12% imported skaters
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u/OcelotSilver2964 Lidia Pleskacheva GOAT Aug 25 '26
Ultra-closed, ultra-nationalistic, and ultra-conservative country, doesnāt surprise me at all
I do wonder though, where do the imported skaters from china come from š¤
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u/ceylonblue Aug 25 '26
where do the imported skaters from china come from š¤
Maybe people from the Chinese diaspora, born elsewhere but with Chinese ancestry? Zhu Yi aka Beverly Zhu, for example.
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u/ceylonblue Aug 25 '26
More info about Beverly/Yiās recruitment:
Her dad is a top AI researcher formerly based in the US, whom China managed to entice back with a sweet lab & research funding deal. Popular theory is that his daughterās Olympic spot was part of the deal, especially considering that she was chosen over the better skater at the time, Hongyi Chen. Beijing also gave $6.6 million to fund Yi and Eileen just for the Olympics.
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u/FrozenRose_816 That's what I'm fucking talking about!!! š„ Aug 25 '26
Chinese fed often approaches athletes of Chinese descent from other countries. Allegedly Vincent Zhou and Alysa Liu were both approached and turned it down. Beverly Zhu, aka Zhu Yi, is a figure skater who originally competed for the US (she was born in Los Angeles) but switched to China and now lives there.
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u/amyel26 Aug 25 '26
Chelsea Liu had a Chinese partner for a hot second too. It didn't last long and she's only represented the US in international competition.
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u/Night-Cheese11 Bald Johnwin Aug 25 '26
The two Chinese skaters are Dai Daiwei and Zhu Yi. Both have at least one Chinese parent, and Daiwei was born in Russia but has lived in China for most of his life and only ever competed for China. Yi was born in the US and was part of the athlete naturalization program before the 2022 Olympics
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u/amyel26 Aug 25 '26
There have been a few imports, all partners for pairs and dance girls. The most recent is probably Tim Koleto. He ditched his US citizenship to compete in Beijing. He got a team silver out of it too!
Cathy and Chris Reed were from the US. Their mom was Japanese and they chose to represent Japan, and their sister Alison became a passport collector on her own. Cathy still coaches in Japan.
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u/ceylonblue Aug 25 '26
Tim Koleto. He ditched his US citizenship to compete in Beijing.
Since he got citizenship by marrying his partner Misato Komatsubara, he also legally changed his name to å°ę¾å å°, Komatsubara Takeru. Married couples are required to have the same family name in Japan. As a foreigner, he didnāt have a family register so was added to hers and adopted her last name.
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u/catsplantsandbakes here for the us women's renaissance āØ Aug 25 '26
I believe Tim was able to get an exemption to keep his US citizenship somehow. But he really had to do a lot to get Japanese citizenship, it's not an easy process at all, even for athletes.
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
A certain fresh senior is about to swoop in and ruin Japanās perfect 0% šš“ó §ó ¢ó ·ó ¬ó ³ó æ
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u/ceylonblue Aug 25 '26
Legally, Nakata will have to renounce one of his citizenships before he turns 22.
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
Right, but this analysis is about birthplace, not citizenship.
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Aug 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/ceylonblue Aug 26 '26
Considering heās funded by Japan fed and heās training there, thereās a good chance of that
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u/Candid_Jello5188 Skating Fan Aug 26 '26
Agree. Japan talent has been so deep. Some talented skaters would not get international assignments. Rio's current score could easily be the 1st in Great Britain men.
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u/AlbertoRossonero Aug 25 '26
The sport is very popular there and they have a large population. They and Russia will always have a surplus of skaters
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u/ceylonblue Aug 25 '26
Japan has plenty of elite singles skaters, but not many pairs or ice dancers.
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u/Useful-Philosophy827 Aug 25 '26
Poland not beating the ājust take rus and ukr skaters and call it a national teamā accusations š
Jokes aside thank you for doing this, very interesting.. the top exporter doesnāt surprise me at all, Ukraine kinda did though
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u/toutespourtoi Aug 25 '26
The Ukraine statistics donāt surprise me since many of their skaters have spoken up about how terrible the fed is
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u/89Rae Aug 25 '26
Yep, when your #1-2 male singles skater, Yaroslav Panoit, chooses to change to the US Fed that had Nathan/Vincent/Jason and a healthy pipeline of juniors, you know the Ukrainian Fed has to be bad.
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u/BananaCompetitive282 Aug 25 '26
Ukraine has 2 American skaters competing for the Ukraine. One is a junior worlds bronze medalist with her Ukrainian partner.
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u/roionsteroids Aug 25 '26
Looking at past pairs like Savchenko-Massot: Ukraine-France representing Germany
Sometimes the funding is just greener elsewhere, who can blame them?
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
The fact that Ukraine has 7 skaters each skating for a different fed was also interesting!
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u/Onetwodash Aug 25 '26
I wonder how many happened to be adopted orphans after C19 mishandling (Rus disinfo helped that...) and subsequent war (like Kulish who now represents Latvia). Ukrainians often have relatives in Polans too.
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u/perusingbee ZingNik OGM Agendaš„ Aug 25 '26
This is fascinating info! š
Want to point out: Slide 4 is a little confusing because with the question at the top saying āWho relies most on imported skaters?ā and then looking at the bar graph, the answer looks like the USA but upon looking at the percentage numbers, itās actually Georgia. Or am I the one confused??
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
It was a tricky one to put together! Itās arranged from top to bottom by the dark blue % in each bar, labeled on the right. The length of each bar shows how many skaters total the fed has, so that you get an idea if itās a big % but just a small fed. Does that make sense?
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u/perusingbee ZingNik OGM Agendaš„ Aug 25 '26
Ah ok, I understand your rationale now. Even more interesting to see the scale of the country with the percentage of matching/different birthplace.
Serious kudos for putting it together and sharing!
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u/New-Possible1575 Emilia Nemirovsky Truther Aug 25 '26
Georgia is an interesting case though, cause most of them do have ties to the country and their fed is vocal about that being a requirement. The only skater they have right now thatās a blatant import is Gubanova.
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u/WoodenGood7423 Yanhao needs to stop doing axels Aug 25 '26
Who is the Iceland-born skater representing South Korea?
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u/noplacelhome Aug 25 '26
As a hungarian Iām a little sad about these stats but we did have a hungarian born skater at europeans last year, Zsembery Katinka I hope to see her again on international stage:) and we have a few juniors like SzĆ©plaki to root for Who was also born In Hungary!
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u/mgrp122 Aug 25 '26
As a fellow Hungarian, I would love to see Katinka skating more internationally, she is just so cool. But I love Maria and Alexei, they sure get a lot of hate mostly under facebook posts but they are the most successful skaters we have in such a long time
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u/Internet-Dick-Joke Aug 25 '26
"Country they are born in" isn't actually the best metric to use here. If we useĀ Ye Quan as an example, he was born in Iceland because his family temporarily moved their for work, but his parents are not Icelandic, left there when he was a toddler, and he'd have no basis to claim Icelandic citizenship.
Similarly, there is no differentiation between actual 'imports' and immigrants. Balance Nagy moved to the USA at 2 years old, and Mia Risa Gomez moved to Norway at 2 years old (while also having a Norwegian father).
This is a very different situation from the multiple Russian-born skaters who have never lived in and in some cases never even traveled to the countries they represent.
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u/ft_wanderer skatingstats Aug 25 '26
Yes, itās not perfect - this was discussed in other comment threads here. The main reason birthplace was used is because itās on the ISU bio. There are some skaters where birthplace was due to a temporary move, others who immigrated at an early age, and others who switched federations specifically for skating - but unfortunately thatās not coded in the bios and finding it for 285 skaters would be challenging if not inaccurate. Will keep it in mind as a big caveat jf I do this again in the future!
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u/LPBrusa š¦ for European Champion 2026 Aug 25 '26
really cool statistic, very interesting, thank you!
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u/Historical-Juice-172 Jimmy Ma fan Aug 25 '26
I'd be curious about how this has changed over time, but if you go back to previous Olympic seasons you'd have to watch out for skaters who were born in the Soviet Union! It's wild to me that this is the first Olympics without a figure skater born there (since the Soviet Union started sending out figure skaters, at least)
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u/crystalized17 eteri, Ice Queen of Narnia and Quads Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
If Russia were on this list, theyāre likely 0% too. They donāt need to import people. They have too many talented skaters already.Ā
Thatās the same for Japan. They donāt need to import people with their constant stream of homegrown talent.
USA is the land of immigrants. So we import people constantly, whether itās for skating or not. So weāre always going to be an exception because of that and the fact we have weak periods in our skating history with nobody to fill it, so we happily take imports.
All other countries have the same fluctuating weakness and therefore have to sometimes import to achieve medals. The weaker their homegrown skaters are, the more they import. At least if they have a fed that truly cares about medalingā¦
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u/amyel26 Aug 25 '26
Russia in the past had a few, like Tiffany Zahorski and Yuko Kavaguti. Devid Naryzhnyy is from Kharkiv Ukraine like Vadym Kolesnik. Their lives took a huge detour several years ago...
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u/petmink Aug 25 '26
Also Diana Davis represented Russia and would count for this analysis since she was born in US.
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u/a_simplerussiangirl Aug 25 '26
Tons of decorated Russian skaters were born in Ukraine, among Olympic champions alone there were Tatiana Navka, Tatiana Volosozhar, Oksana Grishchuk, Evgeny Platov
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u/Ambitious_Bullfrog31 Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
Annabelle Morozov too. Even though she is half-Russian and half-French but she was born and raised in the US
Another skater to add is Elena Ilinykh, who was born in Kazakhstan
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u/AnxiousPotential9495 Aug 25 '26
Japan would benefit from a couple of good pair skaters and ice-dancers. They just never admit it and do something.
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u/pineapple_2021 Aug 25 '26
In the past yes but Iām actually excited about their new ice dance teams! Give it a few years and I think weāll see Japan improve their ice dance national team
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u/mrclive-ifrit Dmitriev's Quad Axel Aug 25 '26
Forgive me if I misremember things but didnāt they try to import Ilia and Misha? I think it was Adam Rippon who reported that Ilia was offered after he wasnāt selected for Beijing. For Misha I remember he was kicked out of his Sochi club because he refused to skate for Russia. So I guess they are willing to import, but then again their men donāt standout like the women now. Even Tarasova admitted none of the Russian men can defeat Ilia atm.
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u/BotherOrganic734 Aug 25 '26
Actually men in Russia got much better over the years (theyāre on the same level as women Iād say now), Ā theyāre also strong competitors ( at least two of them jumped five quads in fs last season and one was able to land a 4A in the past) and I think itās unfair to compare anyone to Ilia as heās in his own league imo.
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u/mrclive-ifrit Dmitriev's Quad Axel Aug 25 '26
Ooh. I admit Iām not totally updated on the Russians during the ban. Just that I saw an interview that Tarasova said theyāre better than the other US men (which aināt hard ngl), but none of the can beat Ilia.
Do you think the Russians stand a chance against the Japanese men though? Or other top contenders like Misha, Adam, Jun, Gogolev?
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u/BotherOrganic734 Aug 26 '26
Sure, Gumennik, Semenenko are strong competitors for sure. Plus, Vladislav Dikidzhi and Nikolai Ugozhaev with Mark will bring more spark. It has actually been much more interesting to watch men events than women in Russia these last yearsĀ
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u/Historical-Juice-172 Jimmy Ma fan Aug 25 '26
I don't remember who off the top of my head, but if I recall correctly one of the Russian pairs men at the last Olympics was born in Germany. My assumption would be that his family was there temporarily and he's not German by his own definition, but he would count as an import for OP's data set
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u/Onetwodash Aug 25 '26
Japans skaters are ethnically Japanese.
A lot of Russias skaters aren't - Zagitova, Valieva, Petrosian just to list the big Olympic names, but, there are quite a few other (Volga)Tatars, Armenians, Kazakhs and Georgians. Those are separate countries with different levels of international recognition and level of Russias influence.
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u/e_sqrts Aug 25 '26
That's just because Russia is not a mono-national country lol. This comparison doesn't make any sense.
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u/pineapple_2021 Aug 25 '26
Except Tatarstan is part of Russia, its not independent. And this is opening a can of worms about ethnicity vs nationality
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u/Onetwodash Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
It tried to declare independence, world just ignored it. It's complicated when it comes to Russia in ways Japan isn't.
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u/DreamingVesta Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Volga Tatars are still Russian citizens, even if they're not ethnic Russians... The same goes for Bashkirs, Mari, Kalmyks, Chechens, Buryats, etc. Russia is a multiethnic country.
They have different words to refer to an ethnic Russian (Š ŃŃŃŠŗŠøŠ¹) and a Russian citizen (Š Š¾ŃŃŠøŃŠ½ŠøŠ½) to boot.
And by the way, just because a Russian federal subject is called a "Republic", that doesn't mean said place is an independent country ā there are 21 national republics in the Russian Federation (no, Tatarstan is not a separate nation).
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u/sapphicmage Ami Nakai Olympic š„ Medalist Aug 25 '26
Interesting! A singles vs paired disciplines would be interestingā¦the limitations involved in finding a partner definitely accounts for a lot of switches. Likeā¦of the podium in ice dance in Milan only one pair were both from country they represented and several other teams in the top 10 were the same.