Estonian Anti-Doping and Sports Ethics Foundation (EADSE) has received petitions from former students and parents alleging figure skating trainer Anna Levandi of mental and physical abuse. Elite coach Levandi conceded she is not perfect but termed most of the claims slanderous and absurd.
EADSE will not disclose the details of the complaints or the names of the complainants, but it has confirmed that the allegations were made against Levandi, the highest ranking coach.
EADSE forwarded the information to the Estonian Skating Union (ESU), which replied that the matter had been taken up, but it was decided to leave it to the federation's board. "We have established a committee to hear from all parties involved to resolve the complaint," Maire Arm, the president of the ESU, wrote to ERR. "It would be premature to talk about the outcome of the process at this time, but we are working within the ESU to provide clarification as soon as possible."
The first written complaint against Levandi was received just before Christmas. "And then there were more complaints, but we had heard such signals before as well," she said.
Henn Vallimäe, a member of the EADSE board, told ERR that according the information they have received, the ESU wants to resolve the issue in-house: "This is a decision of a sports union, and there is nothing exceptional about it."
"It's a question of possible abusive behavior by an elite coach, and our position is that we see a problem with it," Vallimäe added.
"It is serious because it is an accusation against a very high-ranking, highly respected, and esteemed coach. There have always been such conflicts with younger or less experienced coaches, but this is an exceptionally distinguished trainer."
Vallimäe emphasized that the injury does not have to be physical, and that what is important is whether there is a pattern to the individual episodes. "It's an assessment of a pattern of behavior, whether it's within the boundaries of the coach's code of ethics, the kind of behavior described in the coach's code of ethics."
Levandi has given her initial explanations to the board of the skating federation orally and has also provided a written comment, which she shared with "Pealtnägijaga."
"I am by nature passionate, performance-oriented, and certainly very emotional. If I've come across as too harsh in my coaching, or if anyone has felt that I've been unfair, or worse, that I've spoken out of malice, then I'm very sorry," Levandi wrote.
"High performance sports push the limits of human endurance and are extremely physically and emotionally demanding. Sometimes disagreements arise in this high-performance team of athletes, coaches, and parents. Sometimes mistakes are made because of effort, fatigue, or emotion. I sincerely apologize for any hurt feelings or offense that anyone may associate with me, and I will try to learn from these mistakes," she wrote.
"When you have a clear goal to get to the top, you cannot accept mediocrity, either as an athlete or as a coach. This journey cannot be like a light pirouette in a downtown skate park. It's a tremendous amount of work and sacrifice, but one that comes with suffering, setbacks, sweat, pain and tears. Everyone has had to sacrifice – athletes, coaches, their families and loved ones. I am not infallible, but most of these accusations are slanderous, outrageous and deserve to be unequivocally refuted," added Levandi, who addressed several of the allegations in her letter. "I love my job. I love figure skating and I love all of my students."
Levandi also denied the accusations against her to "Pealtnägija
"Dear students, yes, I am demanding, and I may at times be strict or too strict, but I have never been malicious," she told ERR's "Pealtnägija."
"Everything we did together was for one purpose - to help you achieve your goals or fulfill your aspirations. I have always been your best assistant and leader. I am very sad that no one has approached me in all these years, that I am doing something wrong, that I am hurting someone, or... /.../ That's my biggest difficulty. Why? Where were you before?"
To ERR's knowledge, the first complaint was filed by the mother of one of the former students – we will refer to her in this article as athlete A (name known to the editorial team - ed.) after the Estonian Championships in December 2023. "My daughter was there. Before the competition, Anna saw her and told her behind her back that she was a pig. It was a very nervous situation for my daughter before the competition," said A's mother, who wished to remain anonymous. "I went to Levandi and asked her to stop bullying my daughter. She said that I was also a pig. An ungrateful pig. It was emotional, you know, and that was the last straw and after that I wrote a complaint," she said.
According to A's mother, they left Levandi about a year and a half ago. She said that the former coach had been making their lives miserable all along. "She talked behind our backs, as she was sad that a strong girl left her. She said she would do anything to keep my daughter from competing anywhere. /.../ It's a sport where it's not only the physical condition that counts, but also the emotional one. And if the former coach just stands there and looks very mean, the child can't warm up normally because she's already scared."
As the statement of A's mother also mentioned various incidents involving other students, EADSE itself contacted several mothers of skaters and the athletes themselves to confirm the allegations in the statement.
ERR has seen one of the statements and, with the consent of the parties, will provide some excerpts. "As there are so many episodes, it is impossible to single out each and every bad word or humiliation. This is her handwriting; this is how Anna Levandi is when the cameras aren't rolling," the mother of athlete B wrote. "It is common to use the words stupid, moron, or princess (with irony) when coaching children. She takes out all her frustrations on the children and says what she thinks. She openly belittles the students of her colleagues in front of her own students, i.e., the other children – saying they are too fat, have crooked legs, their mothers are fat, etc. – in public, which is not a great example for developing minds. Such a person should not be taking up the couching of innocent four-year-olds, mentally incapacitating them, while shining in the media as an "elite coach.
"B's mother revealed that her daughter had been suffering from bone marrow inflammation for the past five years, but Levandi was not interested in what it was or what caused it. "The motto is that an athlete who feels no pain is a dead athlete. When we relayed the physiotherapist's words that it might not be wise to do exercises on the stairs, all we heard was denigration," she said. "If she doesn't want to reach the top, she should get married now. She forwarded Team Estonia's training information with her own comment: 'I'll pass it on, but I wouldn't recommend burdening your head with such nonsense.
According to ERR, several of the cases involve Eva-Lotta Kiibus, who has trained under Levandi for 12 years. According to a statement submitted to EADSE, Levandi increased the training load at the beginning of the Olympic season, and the skater's legs could not cope, leading to nerve damage that required surgery after the Olympics. "We took a week off in the summer, but it wasn't enough to get our legs back on track and make it through the season. On top of that, there was constant pressure not to tell anyone that something was wrong with you. But when my leg wouldn't stand up because of pain during training, she would yell at me and humiliate me. She also advised me to go to the doctors less, because the pain should be between the ears, and the doctors make you sicker with their nagging."
The severity of the inflammation was also confirmed to ERR by the athlete's physiotherapist.
"Things got so crazy that 10 days before the Beijing Olympics, Anna spat on her in practice after a failed jump and threw skis at her, narrowly missing her face." Both the parent who made the initial statement and other coaches at the Rocca al Mare school were present when this incident occurred.
Athlete A's mother confirmed the incident to ERR: "They had a long and very emotional conversation. I couldn't hear anything because I was standing quite far away. At one point, Anna picked up a pair of skates – I don't know who they belonged to – and threw them at the girl. There was also spitting. I couldn't see exactly where, but I saw the moment of the spitting."
Because of the incident and the leg pain, the athlete also considered not going to Beijing. "Before the Olympics, she was ready to give up, and after the incident, she told Anna that she would only continue if she could continue training when she said she could. This was mainly because of the injury and following the instructions of the physiotherapists. At the Olympics, they had virtually no communication," B's mother said.
At the Beijing Olympics, Kiibus admitted to Estonian journalists that she was close to quitting the Olympics. "I had to make very difficult decisions, I was very close to all kinds of difficult decisions," Kiibus said after the competition.
"We had a critical day when it was clear that somehow nothing could be done, but you just can't go to the Olympics in this shape," Levandi said in Beijing. "And then I made the decision to just courageously give her five days off. Which is unthinkable for me and for her - five days at that time! I said to her, "You're going to tell me honestly in five days if you can put your feet in those boots and not cry.
According to ERR, the critical day mentioned by Levandi was the one described in the statement to EADSE.
In the summer of 2022, Kiibus decided to change coaches and began training with Thomas Kennes in the Netherlands. However, stress fractures in both legs forced her to take a break from competition for more than a year, and she returned to the ice in early February this year.
Child developed nervous twitches
ERR also spoke to many of Levandi's former students or their family members, as well as several coaches. A similar pattern emerges from all of them - athletes leave Levandi's care mentally or physically broken, mostly moving on to other coaches, but in many cases ending their careers. For fear of retaliation or harassment, most are only willing to speak anonymously.
Zoya, the grandmother of Levandi's former protégé, Yegor Marchenko, who turned 18 earlier this year, agreed to comment under her own name.
"There was no public conflict, we didn't argue, but the attitude she showed towards the boy... I had a lot of faith in her as a coach because the boy was a very good athlete. But then her own son (Arlet Levandi - ed.) came along, they are the same age, and she started to openly ignore our kid. She could have honestly said, I'll take care of my son now and you can go, but she didn't say anything. She just didn't care about Yegor," the grandmother said.
"I'm not an expert in figure skating, and I didn't know what to do when it was obvious that Anna wasn't going to skate with Yegor anymore. The boy was always crying at the practice because he was always told that you are stupid and other words like that," Zoya Marchenko continued. "Anna didn't give him any specific training tasks, before the competitions she told me to tell the boy: let him practice the turns. What should I say, am I some kind of expert or what? There was an indifferent attitude."
"Her communication style with the students is very peculiar. She communicates with children by, how shall we put it, insults. It was frightening to the boy, he became scared," Zoja Marchenko said.
"As we left Anna, she asked, "Why are you leaving? The boy answered honestly, "I'm afraid of you!" Anna has a very loud voice. Even when the boy went to Irina Kononova's group and heard Anna's voice from time to time on the ice, he had a panic attack. Just frightened. It hasn't gone away yet. I still don't understand why Anna behaved the way she did."
Zoja Martšenko said that everyone in the rink could hear Levandi yelling at the children, and the boys often came off the ice crying. "Many people suffered because she was considered the best coach in Estonia. Maybe that's the way it should be. It's a Russian school, and that's how they've always coached. But with other coaches, it turned out that no one yelled at them," she said.
"As I described, the boy was afraid of her voice and had nervous twitches in his legs from the screaming. We saw a psychologist for almost a year. It helped; thank God, everything is fine now. He's 18 now, and he's normal; he speaks normally. Before, he used to gag anxiously."
Many of those interviewed by ERR describe the mental terror and constant humiliation that children experience in training. "Anna thinks it's all right and that's the way it should be, otherwise a child won't become an athlete. But it's not really true. The Soviet era is over, those training methods don't work," said the mother of one of Levandi's former students, athlete C. "It's just the way she treats and talks to the kids. In fact, everyone who quit skating has some kind of problem. They're all so unhappy and broken. She's got a lot of power.
""In front of the camera, she shows off and does her best, but she doesn't really pay attention [to the children]. It's actually quite common for her to slander them. Everyone is afraid of her. When the camera is rolling or someone comes to watch, it's great, but it's what the Russian word pokazukha describes, a kind of show-off."
Athlete C was Levandi's student for less than a year. A few months after leaving Levandi, the child asked at home: "Why don't you tell me that I'm a moron or an idiot?" Her mother was surprised. "Why should I tell you that?" Anna used these words when children did not understand what was being said, she called them idiots, the mother of the underage athlete said.
"It wasn't like my child came crying from the gym, ran straight to me and told me what Anna had done. When we left, she [her daughter] suddenly started talking and remembering things."
Pressure to lose weight led to eating disorders
One of Levandi's former coaches, let's call them athlete D, told ERR that certain techniques used by Anna Levandi, as well as some other coaches in Estonia, are not acceptable and do not lead to results.
"There are many examples of this in Estonian figure skating, where skaters are just ruined for some reason and then it's very difficult for them to get out of these pitfalls," they said.
Athlete D explained her wish to remain anonymous because Levandi is the most powerful person in Estonian figure skating. She has made many decisions and introduced changes, both good and bad. Many are afraid of what will happen if they go public.
The most important thing for a skater is weight, and it didn't matter what methods were used to achieve it, they said.
"The attitude at the time was, and still is, that if you're hormonal in your teens, there's basically no such term in skating. I didn't think about it or believe in it. Now, with hindsight, I have done a lot of research on the subject and have come to realize that it is actually a very important part of skating," the athlete D said.
They said that the attitude used to be, "Now you have to find a way to stop the growth, because your body must not become a woman's body in the near future." This is an issue that affects everyone, but according to Levandi's former student, there is a difference between how coaches deal with the situation and how educated they are on the subject.
In Estonia, there tends to be a mentality that you need results as soon as possible, and in reality, many coaches don't think about what happens when you get that result at the age of 14, they said.
According to the former skater, this mentality is also encouraged by the Estonian skating union, which allows children under 16 to participate in adult championships, while the International Skating Union (ISU) no longer allows it.
They said that a coach should not tell an athlete that he or she is weak, inadequate, and worthless in order to make a strong athlete. Instead, a coach should develop a personality through support and skill. Times have changed, and a former athlete says that you have to go above and beyond intense training to make good athletes.
"I agree, there is work to be done, but very clear examples are the two best skaters in the world right now, Kaori (Sakamoto, - ed.) from Japan and Loena (Hendrickx, - ed.) from Belgium, both over 20 and in top shape for life, not starving themselves in any way, very healthy, and in good health," said athlete D. "All I remember is going down, down, and down [in weight]. In the end, it was only because I was so light that I could still jump, but I didn't have the strength anymore."
The skater who trained with Levandi for 10 years, who will be referred to as athlete E, said that weight was not a central issue for them, although they too remember being weighed in front of everyone and being downgraded if their weight did not meet expectations. For them, the most difficult part was the mental manipulation. They said they may have been susceptible because they were alone with their concerns.
"Everything was good at first, when we were small. However, as we grew, we encountered many different kinds of mental tricks. There were unpleasant remarks, and as the growing up phase began, there were some things about boys that were irrelevant and not part of the coaching role," athlete E recalled, noting that calling children idiots or dunces was quite common.
Athlete E's that it wasn't until later that they realized how the coach had treated them was unacceptable. Athlete E believed her to be their second mother, with whom they trained and attended camps and tournaments for years. At the same time, Levandi's manner with the students was manipulative, and the athlete remarked that youngsters are highly impressionable and take what is said to them very literally.
"We were all children, and it's a question for every family how close the relationship is between the children and their parents, but as a child you don't know how to be conscious of it," the athlete E said. "Many achievements were missed because of that, it absolutely broke the psyche."
After leaving Levandi, the young skater found guidance from another coach, who helped in overcoming challenges. For example, they couldn't skate a simple program because if they made a mistake, they would abandoned it. The young woman said it was solely a mental issue. E described her situation as "like being killed," and said that it took at least three years under a new coach for the difficulties to be resolved.
Levandi supported students only in front of cameras
Athlete D, who has seen the world of skating extensively, pointed out Levandi's double-mindedness. In addition, many children, who are not born with the ability to reach the top, are told that they will become Olympic champions if their parents continue to pay, and then the child is forced to starve herself or himself. It is difficult for both the parent and the child, and the whole mindset is flawed.
He added that many coaches don't want parents to watch training, but there are many who do and don't object to harsh methods because they've been told that's the only way to get results.
"Hi there! We don't have any Olympic champions in figure skating, and the fact that a coach dares to say that you can become an Olympic champion... That's great, but it's not really realistic in Estonia. What is realistic is that we have many strong and healthy athletes who keep Estonia in the picture of the skating world," athlete D said.
The consequence of training with this misconception is that many children stop skating very early or end up with injuries. There are also those whose heads are a mess and they can't cope.
Athlete E's summary is similar: they said that they gradually realized the flawed nature of Levandi's training after they left her and as they grew older. As adults, they had to work to get rid of the inner problems and live a normal life. Crying children, however, are still part of everyday life at the rink, according to both athletes.
Anna Levandi is not the only coach like that," noted athlete E. "You can see it in the rink—how kids are kicked by the hand, ear, and so on. It doesn't matter if there are other people and parents there or not. And there's all kinds of screaming going on. If you go there and look at the atmosphere, an ordinary person on the sidelines would realize that."
Parents, according to athlete E, have been zombified; they have been told that this is normal behavior and that good results can be achieved even with young children. With 10–13-yyear-olds, it's still possible to force it, but when the growing-up period comes, when the child is 15–16 and it's time to go to the European and World Championships, many just give up because they are mentally broken.
"If you don't have the patience, the easiest thing to do is to say it's the children's fault," Athlete E said.
The athlete said that because it had been several years since they had worked with Levandi and had gotten their lives in order, they were able to discuss it, but it was reasonable that people with more recent experience would not be able to.
Athlete F, interviewed by ERR, said that they were already older when they arrived at Levandi, so the training methods did not overwhelm them. However, they were not surprised by accusations of humiliating treatment, eating disorders, and injuries against Levandi.
"I must admit that her communication with small children was sometimes unprofessional. As much as I remember, I didn't see anything physical that she would have done, but there was mental stuff," they said, adding that she has had to comfort Levandi's little trainees in the dressing room and seen children shouted at.
Athlete F also said that, unfortunately, Levandi is not the only coach who yells at kids and treats them harshly. She pointed out that now that she is a parent, as a former figure skater, she is asked almost every day if her child is going skating.
"I would answer all of them briefly: No! My child will not put on those skates as long as that generation of trainers remains unchanged, because I do not want that kind of mental anguish.
According to the skater, it is good that someone finally dared to say what goes on in Levandi's training sessions.
"It is sad to hear all this. Very sad. I had hoped that times had changed," the athlete F said.
Athlete D admitted that since Estonia has been doing well in skating lately, it is a pity that a scandal is now breaking out about Levandi, because such things are never good for the sport.
Athlete E emphasized that Levandi's methods, which preserve the Soviet style of training, are not used by all figure skating coaches – results can also be achieved with a human attitude. He cited the example of Aleksandr Selevko, who recently won silver at the European Figure Skating Championships, whose coach, Irina Kononova, is calm and patient, as the trainer should be.
Athlete E added that it's not really just Levandi, but the whole system - people are not blind, but for many years people have turned a blind eye to what's going on because it must have seemed too inconvenient to deal with.
