The 4-year-old Olympic gold medallist had been FFKKR vice-president before he was confirmed in the top role following the decision of director general director Alexander Kogan to step down from the role. 

Kogan had been in charge of the Federation on an interim basis since the death of previous President Alexander Gorshkov last November at the age of 76.

Sikharulidze's term is set to run until until 2026.

"Dialogue with the ISU is very important for us," Sikharulidze told Russia's official state news agency TASS.

"I know that many representatives of the organisation say that it’s time for Russian athletes to participate, without them it’s completely different competitions, therefore, we will do our best to promote and achieve this, for us it is very important,"

The ISU are expected to discuss the question of participation by Russian skaters at their next Council meeting in June.

"Our task is to further develop both women's and pair skating, to pay great attention to men's single skating, we have good results, but I can't say that these are world leaders today," Sikharulidze said.

"We must understand that figure skating, and sports in general, is a team of bright people who want to win no matter what,

"it will be important for me to be in the middle of our athletes and think only about how to help them prepare, again, this is very difficult, because the results are given by people who want to win at any cost,"

It is expected that Sikharulidze will at some stage be confronted by a final decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding Kamila Valieva.

The medal ceremony for the Olympic team event at Beijing 2022, in which the Russian Olympic Committee finished in the gold medal position, has still not taken place because CAS is still considering the case after insidethegames revealed exclusively that Valieva had tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs before the event.

Sikharulidze had personal experience of a controversy during his own skating career,

His Olympic pairs gold medal with Yelena Berezhnaya at Salt Lake City 2002 was later jointly awarded to their Canadian rivals Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.

The decision followed an investigation revealing a judging scandal in which the Canadian pair had been deliberately marked down following a vote-swapping scandal involving Russia and France. 

Sikharulidze’s appointment as FFKKR head has been welcomed by his former coach Tamara Moskvina.

"His strengths as an athlete are long listed, but I would separately note his concern for the development of the sport not only in the country, but also abroad, raising the prestige of Russian figure skaters in the international arena," Moskvina told TASS.

Sikharulidze had been head of the Saint Petersburg Figure Skating Federation.

He had also served in the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg and the Russian State Duma in Moscow.