The International Skating Union (ISU) says it got CHF2 million (£1.6 million/$2.15 million/€1.9 million) of "not budgeted cancellation insurance reimbursements for the cancelled 2020 ISU Championships."

The body described the "most prominent cancellation" as that of the 2020 ISU World Figure Skating Championships planned to be held in Montreal, Canada in March 2020.

It added: "Furthermore, at the end of the 2019/2020 season, the 2020 ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships scheduled to be held in March 2020 in Seoul, South Korea, and the 2020 ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships, scheduled to be held in April 2020 in Lake Placid, USA, were also cancelled."

The insurance disclosure, in the small print of the ISU’s 2020 financial report available on its website, is unusual in that few such payouts have been publicly quantified by sports bodies.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club received a substantial payment under its insurance policy after Wimbledon was cancelled in 2020.

However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is so far not believed to have stated how much, if anything, it received from insurers as a consequence of the postponement of Tokyo 2020.

Overall, the accounts revealed a loss for the year of CHF4.65 million (£3.7 million/$5 million/€4.3 million) on operating income which dipped sharply from CHF39.6 million (£31.4 million/$42.7 million/€37 million) to CHF25.6 million (£20.3 million/$27.6 million/€23.9 million).

The result took into account the release of CHF2.5 million (£2 million/$2.7 million/€2.3 million) of a CHF5 million (£4 million/$5.4 million/€4.65 million) "crisis situations" reserve, put in place in reaction to the spread of COVID-19.

Looking ahead, the ISU said that "apart from the negative pandemic-related consequences the commercial agreements currently in place represent a stable income situation for the coming three to four years."

While figure skating branch income "could be slightly expanded", the ISU said the situation for the speed skating branch remained "critical", even though advertising agreements had been "maintained at previous levels."

It went on: "Specifically, the ISU has, for the time being, been unable to put in place a speed skating title sponsor with a similarly lucrative agreement as in the past.

"Also, due to different reasons beyond the ISU’s control, the ISU was unable to maintain sponsorship agreements in the key markets for short track speed skating, namely China and the Republic of Korea."

For all the difficulties 2020 brought, the ISU’s balance-sheet remained eye-poppingly strong at year-end, with assets totalling just under CHF296.5 million (£235 million/$320 million/€277 million), down from just over CHF321 million (£254 million/$346 million/€299.5 million) a year earlier.