Death of Katia Alexandrovskaya raises serious questions about transferring allegiance
The system which enabled Russian skater Katia Alexandrovskaya to move to Australia at 16 amounts to ‘human trafficking’ says fierce critic Sebastian Coe. Jessica Halloran and Julian Linden report.
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An international athlete-trading scheme that enabled 15-year-old Russian ice skater Katia Alexandrovskaya to switch allegiances to Australia is effectively “human trafficking”, says world athletics boss Sebastian Coe.
The young woman’s death at 20 — apparently by suicide — has sparked international blame over who had responsibility for her welfare, and that of other young athletes who move countries under “transfer of allegiance” sporting protocols.
Alexandrovskaya began training under Australian coaches at 15 and was brought to Australia in January 2016, just after her 16th birthday, and fast-tracked for citizenship to assist the dream of Sydney skater Harley Windsor to become the first Indigenous winter Olympian.
At the time of her death in July, Katia was living in Russia, having been told by doctors she had epilepsy and should never skate again. Her partnership with Windsor was over as both battled health problems.
EXCLUSIVE: The brutal reality of a system that failed Katia Alexandrovskaya
Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates says Alexandrovskaya’s tragic death raised uncomfortable questions about who was ultimately responsible for her wellbeing when she returned to Russia, though no one can agree on who that was.
Ice Skating Australia president Peter Lynch says the Russian health authorities who diagnosed Alexandrovskaya’s epilepsy left her “without a future” when they released her from hospital and told her to quit the sport.
“Perhaps if that had been treated in Australia it might not have been a door closed for her and we could have come up with other ways for her to still compete and manage the situation,” Lynch says in an interview for this joint investigation between The Australian and the Saturday and Sunday Telegraphs.
“Unfortunately, they closed the door on her and then she could no longer compete, and that alone is the most heartbreaking thing.”
Serious ethical issues have also emerged about the regulations that allowed Alexandrovskaya to leave her mother — her father having recently died — and move to the other side of the world.
Still mourning her father’s sudden death, she was approached in 2015 with an offer to change countries after Australian and Russian coaches auditioned her as a pairs partner for Windsor, following a fruitless effort to find him a partner at home.
Alexandrovskaya initially thought she was moving to Austria and came to Australia with no English, to live with coaches Galina and Andrei Pachin in suburban Sydney.
She was one of hundreds of child athletes moving around the world, as “transfers of allegiance” becomes an increasingly controversial topic in world sport.
In 2018 Coe, the president of World Athletics, banned the transfer of all track and field competitors under the age of 20.
HANDSHAKES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
IN an interview for this investigation, Coe says he was alarmed at the notion of children moving countries, often without parental support.
“It’s not an easy thing for me to say but I was finding it quite hard to see a difference between what was emerging and human trafficking,” Coe says.
“(Something is wrong) when you have a system where two federations could effectively shake hands behind closed doors and an athlete, with very little guarantee on either side of the protocol around that transfer, could suddenly end up competing for a completely different country.
“(Athletics) Federation presidents were often waking up to an email from an agent or from another federation saying ‘by the way we know you’re looking for an 800m runner, well, we can help you here’.
“And worse than that, some of them were barely older than anything that would in any country constitute adulthood and in some occasions barely at the age of consent, and that’s when I looked at this and thought we also have a responsibility here in the safeguarding space.”
Coates, Lynch and International Skating Union president Jan Dijkema all reject the characterisation of “human trafficking”.
“Every person is entitled to their own opinion and the age that Katia came to Australia was, off the top of my head I think she was 16, and it’s my view that at 16, yes, of course you’re not technically an adult, but your ability to make an informed decision rests very much with the athlete,” Lynch says.
“I think to call it human trafficking is obviously a very strong view on it and he’s entitled to his view but it’s certainly not our view.”
The International Skating Union doesn’t have age limits for transfers of allegiance, and Dijkema says the practice was bound by national immigration laws.
“A sports federation has limited powers to intervene in this area,” he says. “Furthermore, often, the change of residence of a young skater is connected to the moving of the parents and not focused on the skating career of a child. Finally, the change of residence and related change of ISU membership is also often facilitated by a dual citizenship of a skater, which is something out of the ISU’s control. It is therefore difficult to distinguish cases of ‘trading’ skaters and legitimate changes of residence.”
Coe’s efforts to end the contentious practice are not universally supported.
Ukrainian synchronised swimmer Evgenia Tetelbaum was approached by Israel when she was just 17 and represented her adopted country at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
She says in an interview she never had any regrets, even writing an 18,000-word thesis about the benefits and ethics of athletes transferring countries.
“This is a win-win situation in most of the cases because usually the athletes in Olympic sports are looking for opportunities,” she says.
“I didn’t have any hesitation whether I had to move or not. Even though I didn’t have any knowledge about this country, I was very confident that I can make it.”
Australia has long been an active player in recruiting foreign athletes, mostly from former Soviet states following the collapse of communism, with mixed success.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF TATIANA GRIGORIEVA
ONE of the pioneers, Tatiana Grigorieva, remains the poster girl for Russian athletes transferring to Australia after she won a silver medal in the women’s pole vault at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, then went on to feature in Gladiators and Dancing With The Stars.
Dozens followed, including speed skater Tatiana Borodulina, who joined the Australian Army Reserve. The federal government even amended the Citizenship Act so her passport application could be fast-tracked in time for her to represent Australia at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
But within two years, she returned to Russia and competed for her birth country at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Borodulina’s backflip prompted the AOC to exercise more caution when asking the government to accelerate citizenships for other foreign athletes but Alexandrovskaya’s case was put in the express lane.
Without her, Windsor would not have become the first Indigenous Australian to compete at the Winter Olympics so Alexandrovskaya got her citizenship fast-tracked when she was 17, just in time to compete at PyeongChang in 2018.
Coates says in an interview he was assured Alexandrovskaya had been offered a coaching job in Australia after she retired as well as full healthcare, but she chose to return to Russia.
“When we put our name to someone changing nationality to compete for us, we’ve got to think about what happens afterwards,” Coates says. “We shouldn’t think ‘here’s a chance for us to qualify a figure skating pair and get a good result’. We’ve got to look at what if it doesn’t work out and if they go back home, are they going to be looked after?”
Australian sports psychologists have long known about the serious risk of depression in high-performance athletes and the Australian Institute of Sport runs a number of mental health and suicide prevention programs.
As an Olympian, Alexandrovskaya was entitled to lifetime access to independent psychologists, psychiatrists and eating disorder experts.
Matti Clements, the director of Athlete Wellbeing and Engagement at the AIS, says the services were free, confidential and made available to athletes regardless of where they were based, but are now likely to be reviewed.
“Whether they’re training overseas or living overseas, the services can be delivered face-to-face, online or the phone,” Clements says. “Whenever there is a traumatic or critical incident that occurs in sport, there is always an important part, as there should be in any industry, to reflect.”
Because of privacy laws, officials won’t disclose if Alexandrovskaya took up the services available to her when she returned to Moscow at the start of the year and was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Lynch says Australian skating officials had no idea she was suffering mental health issues but would have helped her had they known.
“When she wanted to go home to look at some other things we didn’t sort of think a lot of it, and none of it was actually shared with us as far as what her health issues were,” he says.
“We’ve obviously since become aware of what they are but at the time she went back to Russia we were not aware of what issues she was dealing with or having investigated.
“The fact she chose to have it looked at or investigated at home obviously wasn’t with someone with a sports point of view that was talking to her.
“We think that this contributed a lot to her state of mind on where they left her, they appeared to leave her without a future and that was the really sad thing about it.
“We could offer assistance but ultimately if the person says ‘I want to deal with this myself’, then we have no way of interfering.”
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