Hit and kicked but no one batted eye
THE physical and emotional scars inflicted on young female ice skaters don’t just disappear when they quit the sport. Victims often suffer in silence, battling depression and serious eating disorders for years, or face fresh harassment if they speak out.
Inspired by the hundreds of young girls who came forward to expose the shocking extent of abuse in gymnastics, Jessica Shuran Yu chose to shine a light on figure skating’s dark secrets.
A talented Singaporean skater who was sent to China to train, she went public with chilling revelations about how she was repeatedly hit, kicked and bodyshamed by her Chinese coach from the age of 11.
Now retired from the sport and studying in New York City, the 20year-old spoke exclusively to The Daily Telegraph and The Australian about the mixed feedback she’s received. She said she had been heartened by the flood of supportive messages she’s had from the public and the private exchanges she’s had with other skaters thanking her for taking a stance.
But no one from the International Skating Union has reached out to her and the response she got from China, the host of the next Winter Olympics in 2022, is deeply disturbing.
“I don’t want to make this a problem about one country because it’s a global issue but in the country and environment I was in, it’s so normalised yet people are so aware it’s happened,” she said. “It was consistently justified to me. The stuff I described in my post, the hitting, the kicking, the yelling, the insults, it happened in front of everyone yet no one batted an eye. “Yet, I think on some level they knew that it was wrong because it was never done at competitions, it was never done when we were abroad, it was never done when we were training within the United
States. It was only when we were at the rink that we were at that it was done in front of everyone.
“I genuinely believe my ex-coach and anyone else who is an abuser or who supports abusers that they genuinely believe that it’s effective and it’s necessary, that they’re doing it for your own sake. It was told to me that this is for your good.
“In fact, someone who I knew from that rink, after I posted, ended up saying to me, commenting that ‘you should be grateful because that was his way of showing love’ and that’s really messed up.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same terrifying message that so many young gymnasts have disclosed after coming forward. The abuse and culture of fear that exists in gymnastics is just as widespread in figure skating.
More than 20 coaches who worked for the French ice skating federation are under investigation for alleged offences stretching back over decades after champion French skater Sarah Aboitbol accused her former coach of raping her in the 1990s.
One of America’s most decorated coaches, Richard Callaghan, has been served with a $10 million lawsuit from Craig Maurizi, an Olympic hopeful who claims he was groomed for a decade of sexual abuse.
Two weeks before naturalised Australian skater Katia Alexandrovskaya fell to her death, another Russian female ice skater revealed she wanted to throw herself off a roof because the sport had left her physically and emotionally wrecked.
Betina Popova’s neck is permanently damaged, one of her fingers remains half bent because she sliced a tendon, she injured both Achilles tendons, smashed a knee, broke both wrists and was concussed four times in the year before she retired.
But that wasn’t what pushed her to the edge; it was from constantly being told by her coaches that she was fat. “Something broke in my head back in childhood and was no longer repaired,” she explained.
Body shaming is one of figure skating’s worst-kept secrets because no one is spared. Females are pressured into staying small and light so they can perform more spins when flung into the air.
So, they starve themselves.
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