Figure skating coach Alexander Volkov told that his daughter Alexa’s change of sporting citizenship was unrelated to sanctions against Russian athletes.
Alexa, 14, is the eldest daughter of Alexander Volkov and his Canadian wife Martina Dazhine. She trains under the guidance of her parents, until last season she took part in Russian competitions (not in the national team). Her best achievement is the bronze of the All-Russian competition for the EA Chaikovskaya awards in terms of CMS (2022).
– Your eldest daughter Alexa has been playing for Canada since this season. Why did the family make this decision?
– We decided this even before the isolation of Russian athletes from international competitions, it has nothing to do with politics. It’s just that before Alexa could not reach the world level by age: she only turned 14 in October.
This is the crazy competition between Russian girls. Their sports life is so short… She won the Olympics at the age of 15 and finished at 16-17.
And we wanted our daughter to ride longer. We have therefore chosen a country in which it is psychologically much more serene to train. And now we especially understand how right we were: after all, Alexa can participate in international tournaments.
– Even last season, Alexa took part in Russian competitions. How did you manage to change sports federation without quarantine?
— Alexa is Canadian by birth, has the citizenship of this country. She was never in the Russian national team, so the FFKR calmly let her go. Now my daughter is in Canada. She has already won the Quebec Junior Championship, which is the competition by which results are selected for the national championship. Alexa won out of 23 girls, and now she’s waiting for Canada’s national championship in January.
– Who trains him and takes him to competitions?
– We are with my wife when Alexa is in Moscow. Now, due to the current situation, Martin and Alex are flying to international tournaments together, I cannot leave.
Of course, getting from Russia to Canada remains difficult and expensive. For the last time, Martina and Alexa took a bus from Moscow to Helsinki, and only there they boarded the plane. Well, what to do!
Source : MatchTV
I’m John White and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. My specialty is covering sports news, which I’ve been doing for over 6 years now. During this time, I have worked as an author with Athletistic, a popular online news website focusing on sports topics.
