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06/11 23:43 CDT Ice skating glides from Milan Olympics success toward reelecting its president Kim Ice skating glides from Milan Olympics success toward reelecting its president Kim By GRAHAM DUNBAR AP Sports Writer GENEVA (AP) --- Ice skating's governing body is gliding into a presidential election Friday, free of the turmoil that just gripped its Olympic sibling skiing. Jae Youl Kim is set to be reelected unopposed by International Skating Union members for a second four-year term. It comes just months after he also was elevated to the International Olympic Committee's executive board representing winter sports. The United States-educated Samsung executive's first election win of 2026 was on the eve of the Milan Cortina Olympics that proved a clear success on the ice. Milan was a stage for the compelling personal stories of U.S. figure skating stars Alysa Liu and Ilia Malinin --- albeit with very different results --- and Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam. "Milan was a huge success, we couldn't ask for anything better," Kim told The Associated Press in an interview. "Venues were good and our skaters were incredible." He is now skating's first representative on the IOC board for 18 years, and could stay through the 2034 Utah Olympics and what shapes to be a dynamic review of Winter Games sports and events. Kim earned the trust of the eight-sport Winter Olympic Federations group against campaigning by Johan Eliasch, who was ousted Thursday as president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS). A bruising FIS election was won by a single vote after a campaign that exposed disquiet in the ski family about its finances and future strategy. The ISU member federation has met in calm for their congress meetings in Tenerife capped with a presidential election.

A fan's joy Kim's family helped found and run a storied daily newspaper, and he arrived in sports as a fan who grew up skating on frozen lakes and ponds in Seoul. "I want to make sure that skating remains as inspiring to as many people as it was to me," he said in an interview at ISU headquarters in the Olympics' home city Lausanne, Switzerland. He studied politics and business at universities in the U.S. --- Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins and Stanford --- before working at Samsung. He later led the Korea Skating Union, and joined the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games organizing committee. Respect for athletes guides his presidency, Kim suggests, and he cites being among Leerdam's 2.5 million followers on Instagram even before she met and got engaged to Jake Paul, the boxer and YouTube influencer. "Jake Paul is a very interesting man, very clever," said Kim, of speed skating's best-known fan in Milan. On the figure skating rink, Kim found joy in Alysia Liu's stunning Olympic title --- "she is one of a kind" --- and admiration for how Ilia Malinin handled a brutal fall out of the medals, setting up a potential redemption at the 2030 French Alps Olympics, likely in Lyon. "I'm amazed how he carried himself after the free program," Kim said. "He told me he's going to be in Salt Lake City (in 2034), he's determined." "They (the athletes) are the only assets that we have and we ought to make sure that we provide everything we can to make them the star."

Prize money raises ISU aims to light arenas more theatrically for athletes and allowing use of official video and images for their social media. It also means more money. This week ISU pledged to more than double its prize money fund for next season, to $11.1 million from $5.4 million. Member federations also will share a $2.1 million raise in help for travel costs.

Russia's return? ISU let Russian athletes try to qualify for and compete at the Olympics in Milan, though their exclusion from other championships is now in a fifth year during the full military invasion of Ukraine. "That discussion took a long time because there's a lot of European perspective, which I understand," said Kim, who in 2022 became the ISU's first non-European head after 130 years. Russian skaters' full return was not on the agenda in Tenerife though a freshly composed ISU Council, Kim said, will be "looking at the right time to make the decision." It hints at a guiding principle. "I want to be able to look back at ISU 20 years from now and then I want to be able to say, ?Hey, we did the right thing.'" ___ AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

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