Tokyo Olympics 2020: Katia Alexandrovskaya’s death has health experts concerned for her peers
The shock death of Katia Alexandrovskaya has health experts bracing for another surge in athletes struggling with their mental health in a week they should all be in Tokyo for the Olympic Games.
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The shock death of Katia Alexandrovskaya has raised alarm bells among health professionals about the mental health of Australian athletes still coming to terms with the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
Sports psychologists have long known about the serious risk of depression in high-performance athletes and the discovery of 20-year-old Alexandrovskaya’s body outside the window of her sixth-story apartment in Moscow on the weekend is a tragic reminder of how real those concerns are.
The Australian Institute of Sport’s Mental Health Referral Network has already experienced a high increase in calls from athletes, coaches and high-performance staff since the Games were postponed for 12 months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
And health experts are bracing for another surge from this week because this is exactly when athletes would have been in Japan.
“There’s a real acknowledgment from athletes that everyone is finding it tough because this has impacted the whole Australian population but these are people who have trained for many years and it’s suddenly been taken away and there’s still some uncertainty about what’s going to happen,” said Matti Clements, the director of Athlete Wellbeing and Engagement at the AIS.
“Within about a two-week period, they were taken out of centralised programs and sent home. not knowing what to do. Not only did they lose their training routines, but also their whole social support and the squad members they train with.
“And to flip that around, for some athletes there was a lot of anxiety about having to make a decision whether to go on for another 12 months when they already planned to retire post-Tokyo because that impacts on other family members, so there was a lot to navigate.”
Olympians and Paralympians normally do a great impression of looking invincible.
Especially when they’re standing on the podium, with gold medals draped around their necks, or when they’re smiling for the cameras and waving to the cheering crowds.
With their sculptured bodies and designer team uniforms, they appear superhuman, without a worry in the world but Clements said that whole perception is wrong.
“We may think they have a perfect life or they’ve got everything under control but that’s simply not the case,” she said.
“They experience the same mental health issues and illnesses that everyone else does because mental health doesn’t discriminate against one.
“Having mental toughness doesn’t mean you can’t have mental health illness.”
The AIS already runs a number of mental health and suicide prevention programs, including the Lifeline Community Custodians, where elite athletes share their own personal stories.
Snowboarding champion, Belle Brockhoff, released a video speaking about the demons she battled while still competing.
For many others, the toughest challenge comes when their sporting careers end, which often happens without warning.
“Olympians and Paralympians are very resilient people in that they often bounce back from adversity because they experience a lot of setbacks, whether it’s related to performance, non-selection and injuries,” Clements said.
“(Retiring) is one of the biggest transitions an individual will have, particularly if their whole sense of identity is based around their athletic performance.
“If you take that situation away, where they will no longer compete, then they may ask themselves ‘who am I?’”
HEARTBREAK FOR COACH
The heartbroken Sydney coach who hatched the plan that produced Australia’s first Indigenous Winter Olympian has spoken of her devastation at the tragic death of the young Russian figure skater who helped achieve their impossible dream.
It was Galina Pachina who came up with the idea of finding Harley Windsor a Russian partner to help fulfil his ambition of becoming an Olympian when there was no one in Australia who could match his raw ability.
The sudden death of Katia Alexandrovskaya on the weekend has stunned the close-knit international skating world, but none more so than Pachin, who feels like she has lost a daughter.
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“My heart is broken to hear of Katia’s passing. She was a talented, driven and ambitious young lady,” Pachin told News Corp Australia.
“On the ice, her determination and strength of character were obvious. She was a worthy role model to the younger skaters aspiring to achieve what she had achieved.
“But more importantly, during the time we spent together, Katia became a part of our family. Not just the skating family, but my family.”
Windsor, who has delivered his own grief stricken tribute, was on the verge of quitting the sport in 2015 when Pachin and her husband Andrei came up with a proposal out of left-field to save his career.
They offered to find him an overseas partner so asked Nina Mozer – who had coached the gold and silver medallists from the 2014 Sochi Olympics – to come up with a shortlist of the best candidates in Russia.
When Windsor arrived in Moscow in 2015, the first girl he was asked to audition was Alexandrovskaya, who was 15 at the time.
Neither spoke the same language but they hit it off straight away so the other girls were all sent home without a tryout.
Alexandrovskaya had her own ambitions to represent Russia but after losing her father that year, the idea of relocating to western Sydney appealed to both her and her mother so she agreed to switch allegiances.
In 2017, Windsor and Alexandrovskaya won the world junior title together, an unprecedented feat for an Australian pair in figure skating, and her application for citizenship was fast-tracked so they could compete together at the 2018 Olympics.
History was made when they finished 18th in PyeongChang but they never reached those heights again, as both skaters began to suffer injuries.
Alexandrovskaya returned to Moscow after she and Windsor announced in January that they were all ending their partnership.
She had been battling depression and epilepsy but her death, from falling from her sixth-floor apartment in Moscow, was unexpected.
“Although we had parted ways on the ice, Katia remained and will always remain, in my heart,” Pachin said.
“I only hope her heart has found peace.”
For crisis support, contact Lifeline at lifeline.org.au or 13 11 14, and Beyond Blue at beyondblue.org.au and 1300 22 4636.