Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya passed away

RIP and condolences to her family and friends. I was up late last night and I saw this in the little preview window on the main FSU screen as the most recent post and I immediately was :(

Also, thank you for sharing @synchrogirl17

AxelAnnie said:
I don't condone suicide but I can understand. Not sure I would not have packed it in myself.
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I'm saying this in the most respectful way possible when it comes to dealing with you because it's not likely that you listen anyways, but for once in you life do you think you could manage stepping into someone else's shoes and realize that we aren't all wired in the same ways? You often make comments like this. The world exists past your feelings. People have different experiences. They have different reactions to experiences.
 
I saw this news come across my Twitter feed this morning. I was completely shocked as I read it and thought it couldn't be true. How horrible to find out that it was real after all. My heart hurts for her and for all her loved ones left behind. Sending her family and loved ones so much love and prayers. RIP Katya :fragile:
 
So many skaters have discussed how hard retirement is because of the way skating can dominate their lives. It must be 1000x worse if it's not voluntary.

I'm still in shock.

It's crazy to think that of the ~150 athletes who competing at the 2018 Olympics in skating, all of whom were fairly young and in great shape, three are now dead.
 
AngieNikodinovLove said:
Wikipedia has already updated her passing today. I’m still so sad over this.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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Thank you for sharing Katia's updated Wiki page. Her tragic death is so exceedingly sad. There have been too many deaths in recent weeks (related to the health crisis, and to many other causes). Some deaths have seemed so needless and senseless, happening to young people who had a lot to look forward to (I'm speaking on a personal level too re one of my relatives). I'm so sorry for Katia that she was struggling with depression and sad thoughts regarding her self-worth. My heart goes out to her mother, to her former skating partner, Harley Windsor, and to all those who were close to her, and to everyone grieving for her loss. It's particularly hard dealing with a traumatic health diagnosis when you're young, especially when coupled by a worldwide global crisis, and loss of your purpose and goals as a skater. In the midst of depression, it's hard to find a way out at a young age, without immediate resources and help from others who, although they care, may not fully understand. I wish there had been a lifeline available for Katia. As someone posted on the Junior Worlds championship video of Katia and Harley: "Rest in Power, Katia." ♥

Thanks also to @Pastilage for sharing her knowledge of the health complications surrounding an epilepsy diagnosis. I really hope that Katia's death will lead to positive developments, such as a Memorial Fund in her name. Such a fund might offer counseling services and resources for skaters struggling with depression and/or regret and confusion while competing and after retirement, abrupt or otherwise. There have been some recent public conversations by skaters, including Ashley Wagner and Marissa Castelli, sharing how they found helpful counseling resources that benefited them in re-discovering purpose and direction for their lives after retiring, not on their own terms. I'm also hopeful about Gracie Gold's recent documentary, and the work she is doing in telling her story and giving back in ways that might benefit athletes and young people who are facing depression and/or other daunting personal struggles.
 
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Axel Annie, I couldn't find your original post with the following, so copied it from above.

I don't condone suicide but I can understand. Not sure I would not have packed it in myself.
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First off, who condones suicide other than advocates of mercy killing?

Yet, it remains an option for many people.

I don't you how you can judge whether you would have packed it in yourself. I don't think you suffer from serious depression?

My brother's second wife and the mother of his two children committed suicide some years ago now. She underwent multiple hospitalizations and multiple suicide attempts.

She was a brilliant woman with a satisfactory career and SFAIK my brother was very loving to her. Two kids. She and my brother had just bought a starter home and things would be looking up for them in future (brother was a math professor). She had financial security.

It's been suggested that she was improperly diagnosed. She was originally diagnosed with post-partum depression, but in retrospect it seemed more likely that she was a manic depressive. She would fall into black holes and not get out of bed for days.

It was her daughter who found her when she killed herself, about age 10. She was so desperate to die, it seems, that she didn't even care about the impact that her children finding her dead would have on them.

I can't say what I would have done in her situation, because I've not suffered from the mental illness that finally defeated her. If I did, maybe I would come to the same conclusion. :(

I like to think she would get better treatment today (died in 1992), but really can't be sure of that.
 
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We get to enjoy the beautiful performances from these amazingly talented skaters but never really see (until it’s too late) the deep pain, hardship and sorrow. So young, so tragic ? ? I never got to know her personally, but her passing hurts and I can’t help wondering who else is in pain, who else needs help that we don’t know about...my thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones ?
 
tuttifrutti78 said:
We get to enjoy the beautiful performances from these amazingly talented skaters but never really see (until it’s too late) the deep pain, hardship and sorrow. So young, so tragic ? ? I never got to know her personally, but her passing hurts and I can’t help wondering who else is in pain, who else needs help that we don’t know about...my thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones ?
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This. I've been following FS for twenty years and I love it with my whole heart, but the human cost is SO high, and I don't know what to do. I don't want to believe it's inevitable - if that's true, then it's not worth it! Stop putting people through this, just so I can enjoy the jumpy sequin flailing!

For every story of a happy athlete who loved skating and competing, and won the thing they wanted, and moved on to a happy post-skating career, it seems like there are ten who were crushed by this sport, in one way or another. Every time a skater has a kid, and someone asks them if they'll encourage the kid to skate, and you see that look of sheer horror flash across their face, like you asked them to throw their baby into a woodchipper.

The stories just keep adding up, and it's unbearable.
 
Orm Irian said:
Former Australian ice dancer Greg Merriman has organised a fundraiser to send flowers to Katia's funeral and help her family with funeral costs. You can find it here if you'd like to contribute: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ekaterin...m=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
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It's also being posted all over social media by all the Team Australia skaters (I've seen Harley, Brendan and Brooklee so far) so you can be sure it's the real thing. Flooding her funeral with flowers...I love the idea. I hope we can somehow get some golden wattle there...it's the wrong time of year for it though. :(

Because of course, I just realised. Harley and the other Team Australia skaters won't be able to go to the funeral. :cry: Our border is shut tight. I hope there will be some way they can attend virtually.
 
Kateri said:
This. I've been following FS for twenty years and I love it with my whole heart, but the human cost is SO high, and I don't know what to do. I don't want to believe it's inevitable - if that's true, then it's not worth it! Stop putting people through this, just so I can enjoy the jumpy sequin flailing!

For every story of a happy athlete who loved skating and competing, and won the thing they wanted, and moved on to a happy post-skating career, it seems like there are ten who were crushed by this sport, in one way or another. Every time a skater has a kid, and someone asks them if they'll encourage the kid to skate, and you see that look of sheer horror flash across their face, like you asked them to throw their baby into a woodchipper.

The stories just keep adding up, and it's unbearable.
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Exactly what I've been thinking, all that you wrote! :(
 
Hanna said:
Exactly what I've been thinking, all that you wrote! :(
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I was rewatching programmes for Tony's poll thing, and, like... I used to love it when skaters cried with happiness when they skated a great programme. Now all I can think is that they shouldn't care this much, it's just skating, and I'm so scared of how much self-esteem that all these children have staked on this... literal goddamn knife-edge!
 
Kateri said:
This. I've been following FS for twenty years and I love it with my whole heart, but the human cost is SO high, and I don't know what to do. I don't want to believe it's inevitable - if that's true, then it's not worth it! Stop putting people through this, just so I can enjoy the jumpy sequin flailing!

For every story of a happy athlete who loved skating and competing, and won the thing they wanted, and moved on to a happy post-skating career, it seems like there are ten who were crushed by this sport, in one way or another. Every time a skater has a kid, and someone asks them if they'll encourage the kid to skate, and you see that look of sheer horror flash across their face, like you asked them to throw their baby into a woodchipper.

The stories just keep adding up, and it's unbearable.
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There are considerable areas in sport where greater efforts around psychological help, etc. are now being made. And Ekaterina is a particularly extreme case, seemingly exacerbated by a pandemic-induced shortage of opportunities on top of the usual pressures of having your desired career cut off suddenly.

But to a degree it is indeed inevitable that skating, like any sport or pursuit, will leave a lot of people injured and/or discouraged. Only a fraction of the people who attempt anything will achieve that thing, and even achieving it won’t necessarily go the way you want. Whether that thing is the Olympics, being an actor, being a businesswoman, or whatever else.
 
Colonel Green said:
But to a degree it is indeed inevitable that skating, like any sport or pursuit, will leave a lot of people injured and/or discouraged. Only a fraction of the people who attempt anything will achieve that thing, and even achieving it won’t necessarily go the way you want. Whether that thing is the Olympics, being an actor, being a businesswoman, or whatever else.
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I know, and I would love to be reassured, I really would, but it seems like skating has SO MANY possible routes to mental destruction, compared to others. You can be physically injured. You can be driven over the edge from stress. Or an eating disorder, or the pressure to be physically beautiful. You can lose your social life, educational opportunities and entire sense of self, from devoting 100% of your life to it. You can spend huge amounts of money, and get nothing back. You can spend huge amounts of your parents' money, and feel trapped by the pressure and guilt of it. There are so many more, I could go on all day.

This is a thread about Katia, and I don't want to derail it, if anyone wants to carry on talking about it, we could do it elsewhere. I don't want to, because I don't have any answers, I'm just sad.
 
Kateri said:
I know, and I would love to be reassured, I really would, but it seems like skating has SO MANY possible routes to mental destruction, compared to others. You can be physically injured. You can be driven over the edge from stress. Or an eating disorder, or the pressure to be physically beautiful. You can lose your social life, educational opportunities and entire sense of self, from devoting 100% of your life to it. You can spend huge amounts of money, and get nothing back. You can spend huge amounts of your parents' money, and feel trapped by the pressure and guilt of it. There are so many more, I could go on all day.
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I don’t think those things are at all unique to skating compares to other sports, for the most part. Physical and mental stress, lack of social life, etc. are typical features of pursuing excellence in athletics. Physical appearance is certainly something skating emphasizes more than many other sports (in theory, at least; but I think female track and field athletes, for instance, would say their sport has a lot of appearance-related pressures too, even if it’s not technically part of the competition).

Degree of expense relative to the potential financial benefit is definitely an area where skating is on the high-cost, low-return end at present. That’s the case for a lot of winter sports in particular, but cost-sharing amongst groups will always be difficult due to skating’s requirements. Skating is a rich person’s sport, and is probably always going to be more like show jumping than soccer.
 
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Evgenia Medvedeva on Katya's passing away:
Two days have passed since the death of Katya Alexandrovskaya. I had known Katya since we were three years old and started skating together. She was a little younger than me, and just recently we have been helping our friend [Brendan Kerry] to find his dog that got lost. We weren't close friends, but we knew each other well. Sometimes we spoke, but rarely. When my friend lost his dog, and I posted information on the social media, Katya was one of the firsts to offer her help. This is what good and decent people do. I didn't think at that time that Katya needed help, and I am sorry that we didn't communicate often.
I am really worried about what happened to her. Dear friends, let's remember that depression is not just a bad mood, as, unfortunately, people often think in our society. Depression is an illness that is treated in hospitals and with special medication. If you see any signs of psychological illness among your family members or friends (anxiety, lack of appetite, apathy, obsessive thoughts a person shares with you and etc), try to do your best and be with that person as much time as possible. Find them the best therapists, do now try to cheer them up with only jokes, as this may make the situation worse.
Please, do the same if you see these signs in your behavior. Don't keep it to yourselves. Speak. Remember, if you have no one to share your problems and thoughts with and you have no one to help you, there is a helpline and psychological help for children, teenagers and their parents. High demands and a cruel consumer society are the problems of the modern world. We often get so involved in problems, our careers and toxic relationships that we forget about our own happiness. Sometimes we lack the supportive shoulder of our close ones and the simple love.
I would like to appeal to those anonymous users on social networks who insult and attack young people. Think about what you are writing. You don't know how the person you are addressing your anger is feeling. Perhaps that person is on the edge and your bad word will be the last straw in his life cup. If you don't think about others, at least think about yourself - because if something irreparable happens to that person , that would be on you.
Take care of yourselves and you loved ones. Don't wait until it's too late.
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There are a lot of risks and known pitfalls involved in elite-level figure skating. We've spent much of the past year and a half confronting some of these issues via the Coughlin and Cipres cases, as well as allegations of coaching abuses, and the increasingly open discussion of eating disorders, retirement-associated problems, gender power imbalances in partnered disciplines, and other issues in skating. Although it's true that figure skating may have much in common with other sports, the idea of essentially papering over its problems as "no worse than other sports" doesn't sit right with me. No matter what is going on in other sports, figure skating needs to face and address its own issues. And yes I fear that Alexandrovskaya's story may be linked to many of these issues--increasing the urgency of the need to address them.
 
Ka3sha said:
Evgenia Medvedeva on Katya's passing away:
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Med is a good person.

The skaters have been through a lot these last couple of years - four skaters and a coach who died young (and the additional issues related to John Coughlin's death), abuse cases, and a lost season because of the CV - a big deal to young competitors. FSUers aren't the kind of people who are jerks to skaters on social media, but I hope others will heed Evgenia's call to be kinder.
 
clairecloutier said:
Although it's true that figure skating may have much in common with other sports, the idea of essentially papering over its problems as "no worse than other sports" doesn't sit right with me. No matter what is going on in other sports, figure skating needs to face and address its own issues.
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To be clear, I certainly was not suggesting that there isn’t more that can and should be done, or that this is a license to do nothing. I simply don’t think it’s accurate or productive to treat skating as if its problems are unique or uniquely bad (anymore than when many other disciplines were acting like the USA Gymnastics scandal was something sui generis to them, and not something that had become typical of far too many athletic institutions).
 
Colonel Green said:
To be clear, I certainly was not suggesting that there isn’t more that can and should be done, or that this is a license to do nothing. I simply don’t think it’s accurate or productive to treat skating as if its problems are unique or uniquely bad.
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I agree that no one issue is unique to skating, my point was that skating has ALL of them at once, where other sports generally only have a few.
 
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