“There was an offer from another country, but I was not very interested” – figure skater Akhantieva about the possibility of changing sports citizenship

Russian figure skater Ksenia Akhantieva in an interview with , she said that after the breakup of her duet with Valery Kolesov, she received an offer to play with a foreigner.

Akhantieva and Kolesov won a silver medal at the 2020 World Junior Pair Skating Championships, became second at the Russian Junior Championships in the same year and bronze medalists at the Grand Prix Final among juniors. In April 2022, coach Fedor Klimov announced that the couple had separated, Kolesov was now performing with Yasmina Kadyrova. According to Akhatyeva, she hasn’t skated since last summer.

— Have you considered the possibility of changing your sports citizenship for the sake of a foreign partner?

– This was an extreme case, if it was completely impossible to find a partner in Russia. There was an offer from a boy from another country, but I wasn’t very interested. Moreover, due to the political situation, he obviously would not have been allowed to join our team in Sochi,” Akhantieva told .