Olympic figure skater Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya has died at age 20 of an apparent suicide, according to reports.
The International Skating Union announced her “sudden and unexpected passing” on Saturday in Moscow.
Alexandrovskaya and her partner, Harley Windsor, were the first Australian Olympic pairs’ skaters in 20 years at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. They finished in 18th place. The duo skated in the top-level Grand Prix Series the last two seasons, according to NBC.
The Moscow-born Alexandrovskaya obtained Australian citizenship in 2016. She and Windsor won a junior world title in 2017 after training together for just one year. They twice won the pairs national title in Australia.
Windsor, the first Indigenous athlete to compete for Australia in the Winter Olympics, wrote on Instagram that he was “devastated and sick to my core about the sad and sudden passing of Katia. … This news is something you can never prepare for.”
Alexandrovskaya fell from a sixth floor window, her coach, Andrei Khekalo, told AFP. Tass, the Russian news agency, reported the preliminary cause of death as suicide, according to the Washington Post.
Khekalo said she had been diagnosed with epilepsy in January and quit the sport. She was also suffering from depression, he said.
