Keeping Track of Criminal Cases & SafeSport Suspensions in Skating

[Rukia]

Actually, the grooming, as you point out, is abusive and that DOES put what's going on there under SafeSport's jurisdiction. It's all bad, in so many ways.

oh I def agree I was just trying to distinguish the immigration fraud marriages from Desyatov's other issues while not getting my post deleted lol

 

[chameleonster]

Moving away from Desyatov for a second, Artem Markelov was 16 when he moved to the US where he lived with Leah and her family, and a coaching group that at least heavily encourages early marriages. Depending on if the rumors are true he got married 2-4 years after living in a foreign country completely dependent on Leah's family. You can't tell me that's a healthy dynamic. They seem to be the pair most likely to be in an actual relationship but that just makes me feel icky, because it does feel like grooming. It's completely inappropriate to push this on teenagers. It's grooming and it's abuse. Even if the skaters in question have the idea themselves, the coaches, parents, and officials should advise against it instead of letting these young athletes get themselves into this kind of mess.

 

[ChelleC]

I just want to say that just because these young women were technically adults when they got married off, that doesn't make this any less abusive. Some amount of grooming has to go on to put them in a situation where they go along with this and it probably started young. I don't want to lessen the effect of what was done to these girls just because it seems "less bad" than the safesport issues.

Legally adults yes, but given that the brain doesn't fully mature until the mid 20's there's an argument to be made that none of these young adults are fully mature enough to be making these decisions. I come from an area where getting married young is the norm, and even among my generation it's surprising to see young marriages that have lasted. But of course they only need the marriages to last long enough to perhaps make it to the Olympics.

I place the blame, for the marriages, solely on the adults. Both the coaches and the parents.

 

[canbelto]

I guess I am shocked that parents would be THIS desperate to get to the Olympics that they're willing to marry off their barely-legal daughters to guys they don't know at all.

 

[Barbara Manatee]

This is bizarre. It really highlights how insular the world of elite niche sports can be, that this group of coaches, parents, and young skaters could somehow all convince themselves that secretive phony marriages are just a reasonable part of a training program.

This is a terrible time for USFS to be without a CEO - I can see this story blowing up into quite a public scandal.

 

[Trillian]

It's of great consequence and concern. I'm not downplaying the criminal investigation at all, but this other stuff is also very, very bad.

The way it’s hitting me at the moment, with the caveat that I have only been processing all of this for like an hour, is that “the other stuff” is horrific in a way that seems very specific to figure skating. Most of the stories of sexual assault and abuse that we read about in this thread, as awful as they are and as much as we know the culture of figure skating contributes to the circumstances surrounding them, are not unique. They are the kinds of things that happen (unfortunately) all the time outside the context of figure skating.

This situation? Three teenage skaters from the same school that just happens to operate right under the noses of the highest-ranking officials in U.S. Figure Skating are married to their Russian partners in a situation that almost certainly involves varying degrees of grooming and conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, with the potential for a human trafficking conversation on top of all that. This is not a story that could happen anywhere. This is a story about so many of the ways that figure skating has a deeply problematic culture, and I hope it becomes the scandal the sport deserves.

 

[Desperado]

I guess I am shocked that parents would be THIS desperate to get to the Olympics that they're willing to marry off their barely-legal daughters to guys they don't know at all.

Almost sounds like they only had kids to make them Olympic athletes.

You can’t see your children as a separate person with agency, if you’re willing to do this.

 

[PRlady]

The way it’s hitting me at the moment, with the caveat that I have only been processing all of this for like an hour, is that “the other stuff” is horrific in a way that seems very specific to figure skating. Most of the stories of sexual assault and abuse that we read about in this thread, as awful as they are and as much as we know the culture of figure skating contributes to the circumstances surrounding them, are not unique. They are the kinds of things that happen (unfortunately) all the time outside the context of figure skating.

This situation? Three teenage skaters from the same school that just happens to operate right under the noses of the highest-ranking officials in U.S. Figure Skating are married to their Russian partners in a situation that almost certainly involves varying degrees of grooming and conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, with the potential for a human trafficking conversation on top of all that. This is not a story that could happen anywhere. This is a story about so many of the ways that figure skating has a deeply problematic culture, and I hope it becomes the scandal the sport deserves.

This. This was a case of sexual abuse like the others we’ve discussed until now. And my two favorite young teams are utterly compromised (F/D and N/M.) Now I’m wondering what the story is with ZingKol as well: I love them but he did go far afield to find a partner.

 

[Rukia]

This. This was a case of sexual abuse like the others we’ve discussed until now. And my two favorite young teams are utterly compromised (F/D and N/M.) Now I’m wondering what the story is with ZingKol as well: I love them but he did go far afield to find a partner.

Listening to Zingas talk about how Igor pushed her towards dance when she had no interest in it has sort of raised some red flags for me, especially given things Christina Carreira has said with regards to how she was treated. I just hope that everything is good with z/k, particularly her (just because I know Kolesnik is a favorite of Igor's).

 

[Karen-W]

Listening to Zingas talk about how Igor pushed her towards dance when she had no interest in it has sort of raised some red flags for me, especially given things Christina Carreira has said with regards to how she was treated. I just hope that everything is good with z/k, particularly her (just because I know Kolesnik is a favorite of Igor's).

Makes me thankful as heck that Christina & Anthony are at IAM-Ontario where, as far as we know, there aren't any weird partner marriages happening. (Now just watch stuff start coming out about Ritter/Brykalov or some other lower-ranked team at that center.)

 

[Hedwig]

Listening to Zingas talk about how Igor pushed her towards dance when she had no interest in it has sort of raised some red flags for me, especially given things Christina Carreira has said with regards to how she was treated. I just hope that everything is good with z/k, particularly her (just because I know Kolesnik is a favorite of Igor's).

What did she say? I have not heard her story?

 

[Rukia]

What did she say? I have not heard her story?

I can't quote it exactly, but it was basically that she really loved freestyle skating but Igor kept pushing her to do dance and she was really resistant to it, but now she enjoys skating with Kolesnik. It may have just been awkward wording, but also I know that Igor has been not great to other skaters so .

 

[her grace]

Lundsay Wang interviewed Emilea Zingas for her and Luke Wang's podcast, Off Ice Hours, and Emilea takes about how Zingas/Kolesnik started , how she has been making transitions from a single skater to an ice dancer, how they created short and long programs for last year, etc. Very interesting.

Off(Ice) Hours Podcast on Instagram: "This episode features Team USA ice dancer @emileazingas !! We talk her journey transitioning from singles to ice dance, some behind-the-scenes stories of her team’s creative process, what it’s like skating with @

19 likes, 3 comments - itsofficehours on August 30, 2024: "This episode features Team USA ice dancer @emileazingas !! We talk her journey transitioning from singles to ice dance, some behind-the-scenes stories of her team’s creative process, what it’s like skating with @vadym____kolesnik, and...

www.instagram.com

Here’s an interview with Zingas that covers how she switched to ice dance. She seemed pretty positive to me about the switch, but YMMV.

 

[Rukia]

Here’s an interview with Zingas that covers how she switched to ice dance. She seemed pretty positive to me about the switch, but YMMV.

Well like I said I hope that's the case and everything is good and she is happy.

 

[Rhumba d’Amour]

This. This was a case of sexual abuse like the others we’ve discussed until now. And my two favorite young teams are utterly compromised (F/D and N/M.) Now I’m wondering what the story is with ZingKol as well: I love them but he did go far afield to find a partner.

And, of course, we cannot forget how Kolesnik came to the US to start with—brought here to be a partner to Avonley, living in her home with her and her parents, until there was some sort of rupture between them right after they won Junior Worlds. As far as I recall, anyway.

 

[chameleonster]

Well I suppose if nothing else Igor is at least not pushing his teenaged dancers into marrying for citizenship, as both Christina and Vadym have taken the slow, normal way. Truly a low bar.

 

[Rukia]

Well I suppose if nothing else Igor is at least not pushing his teenaged dancers into marrying for citizenship, as both Christina and Vadym have taken the slow, normal way. Truly a low bar.

lol even igor draws a line somewhere i guess

 

[peibeck]

Here's what Tsarevski has publicly stated about the split with Flores from a 2023 US Figure Skating Fanzone article.

No offense, but what Tsarveski says in a USFS fluff piece isn't what I'd consider to be a "gospel of truth" moment.

 

[her grace]

No offense, but what Tsarveski says in a USFS fluff piece isn't what I'd consider to be a "gospel of truth" moment.

Did I say it was? People had mentioned that we never heard his side so I shared what he has said.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Ivan left his partner his previous partner to go with Bella pretty much in the same fashion that Dimitry did, with no notice to the partner or coaches. But apparently that was acceptable to Bella and her family when it benefited them. Talk about being hypocrites...

I disagree: those were very different circumstances. In an interview Leese posted and linked above, Desyatov didn’t tell anyone he was about to uproot his life and move to another country within two weeks. 35 or more years ago, that would have been a classic defection story. What he said was perfectly plausible: he was afraid of being dissuaded, and who knows what “dissuasion” would have entailed, and if he thought about it too much, he might have backed out.

I’m sure Dostatni persuaded him when he called her she get him a partner, guaranteed, and might have had Flores in mind, but he didn’t leave Russia for Flores for a pre-arranged swap, like Massot did to his partner. They hadn’t ever tried out yet.

Tsarevski was a US citizen, and there was zero leverage over a US citizen male skating partner who held all of the cards. No one in Flores’ Tsarevski’s (edited, see down thread) camp has contradicted her statement that he gave her no notice that not skating at Nationals. There was nothing to stop him from getting a message to her through his family and/or their coaches, or at least sending her a post-it note to let her know that he needed to flee the scene, temporarily or permanently. He didn’t need to show up in person with flowers. That’s completely separate from his right to leave the partnership for whatever reason he had.

Desyatov didn’t leave Flores for another partner without telling her, either. He just made himself ineligible to skate, especially if the ISU takes the same stance as it did with Sorensen.

 

[VGThuy]

That was fast. The criminal investigation must really have some teeth.

Is there a criminal investigation? I’m so confused as to what’s established and what’s not as so much going on.

 

[jmtfti]

I'm having trouble finding the interview -- I'm afraid it may have been IFS -- but Lauriault/Le Gac once admitted, sometime after or around the 2018 Olympics, that Romain Haguenauer was the one who suggested they marry (after they were already dating) to expedite her French citizenship, and they had done so while still competing at the junior level. It's worth considering how not unusual this WASA scheme may have seemed to others who knew of it.

 

[canbelto]

Anthony and Christina aren't dating though. AFAIK theyve never been a couple.

 

[Rukia]

Is there a criminal investigation? I’m so confused as to what’s established and what’s not as so much going on.

That is not 100% established and based on other suppositions/rumors (mostly being put forth by Dave Lease). The only thing definite is the safesport suspension and also the marriage(s).

 

[Karen-W]

Tsarevski was a US citizen, and there was zero leverage over a US citizen male skating partner who held all of the cards. No one in Flores’ camp has contradicted her statement that he gave her no notice that not skating at Nationals. There was nothing to stop him from getting a message to her through his family and/or their coaches, or at least sending her a post-it note to let her know that he needed to flee the scene, temporarily or permanently. He didn’t need to show up in person with flowers. That’s completely separate from his right to leave the partnership for whatever reason he had.

I think what you mean to say is that no one in the Tsarevski camp has contradicted her statement that he gave her no notice or reason regarding his decision to stop skating with her.

All we have is Flores' side of the story - and it paints her in the best possible light - as the deserted partner who was shut out from his life completely. And that may be true. But, looking back on her posts at the time, she was saying that their coaches were also getting no information and that when people showed up at his family home, they were told to get a search warrant if they thought Dima was in danger.

Nearly 3 years on, it kind of makes you wonder what his parents & family were seeing or noticing in that training situation at WASA that gave them concern and caused him to agree with ending the partnership and cutting off all contact. And if there was a larger issue at play, why should anyone require him or his family to tell her through anyone but the USFS that the partnership was ended?

I'm sorry, but, from everything that is coming out here, I'm really bothered by the continued need of some fans to blame Tsarevski for the end of that partnership. Just stop. It's gross and he was clearly not okay with whatever was happening there and is in a much better place now.

 

[kwanfan1818]

think what you mean to say is that no one in the Tsarevski camp has contradicted her statement that he gave her no notice or reason regarding his decision to stop skating with her.

Yes, my mistake. Tsarevski didn’t even contradict it himself, or say it was a miscommunication, or his text didn’t go through.

Nor have their coaches contradicted it or said, “He told us; we thought he’d told her.” If it was clear to them that he was out of their camp, though, it wouldn’t have been in their best interest to set the record straight.

And I do not blame him for ending the partnership for whatever reason he had.

 

[canbelto]

This is almost reminding me of the days Mr Mayer said that if you wanted to make pictures for MGM, you had to marry who he told you to marry.

 

[CesYeg]

Yes, and it adds an entirely new psychological layer to the allegations of misconduct that have gotten Desyatov suspended at this moment. Not that it absolves him of any wrongdoing, but it certainly cannot have given him a healthy mindset or sense of control regarding his life.

Does anyone know exactly what it was that Desyatov did that is a criminal offense???

 

[Karen-W]

Does anyone know exactly what it was that Desyatov did that is a criminal offense???

There are rumors and that's all any of us can say - Sharpie and the Admins do not allow us to discuss the speculation. If a criminal charge or public accusation is made then we'd be allowed to discuss it more openly.

 

[nlloyd]

I'm sorry, but, from everything that is coming out here, I'm really bothered by the continued need of some fans to blame Tsarevski for the end of that partnership. Just stop. It's gross and he was clearly not okay with whatever was happening there and is in a much better place now.

I understand where you are coming from with this, but it is quite possible that he also behaved problematically and that it was not just the Flores family that was dysfunctional. With the overall toxicity at that school, both parties may have been at fault. With the evidence we currently have, we can't rule Tsarevski entirely innocent, and indeed a victim, at this point, in my opinion.