Hektor Giotopopoulos Moore, 19, thanks to COVID, spent the last two years in skater’s exile in Russia trying to get home yet he still managed a silver medal for Australia as a pair skater at the Figure Skating Junior World Championships in Tallin, Estonia with his partner of just one season, Anstasiia Golubeva, aged 16.
The achievement is not only remarkable for the fact that few Australians should reach such heights (Harley Windsor is the 2017 Junior World champion) in a sport dominated by the northern Europeans and where ice and snow are an every-day winter reality, Hektor was stranded in Russia by the pandemic facing the constant anxiety of being away from home in a foreign country uncertain about his visa status and with no chance to train properly because of restrictions.
“I went to Russia in February, 2020, on a three-month visa with the aim of returning to Australia but I ended being stuck there for a year and a half” Hektor told Neos Kosmos this week.
It was fortunate that his coach, Sydney-based Galina Pachina, had kept her links in Russia and Hektor was well looked after despite the uncertainties.
But visa requirements were disruptive to his training and required him to spend at least a day every 30 days out of Russia. In his case it was a day in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
In August, last year, Hektor and Anastassia competed in a big tournament in Siberia where they came fifth. When the pair went to compete in a senior competition in Germany where they came eighth, they were faced with visa problems for their return to Russia. He was forced to move to Minsk in Belarus in November where the visa requirements were less stringent and the training facilities were very good.
“You have to do everything to train properly. I was very well looked after,” he said. Even as the Ukrainian crisis loomed, Hektor said he felt safe in Minsk and knew that he could be out of the country within an hour if things became really bad.
In late March, he travelled with his partner and coach to Estonia and trained for two-and-a-half weeks before taking part in the Junior World Championships.
“We had been planning to take part in the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships in France, but again there were visa issues and we could not make it in time,” said Hektor.
Despite the bureaucratic hurdles histraining was maintained and his coach and her partner ensured that he was well looked after. Hektor finally returned home to his family in Sydney earlier this year. Next week when Alek, his younger brother, a basktetball player comes home from the US the family will all be together for the first time since 2017.
Danis, Hektor’s older brother was the one who took to ice skating when Hektor was seven. While the bug bit Hektor Danis decided to focus on his ballet dancing – he went on to train at the Bolshoi and now dances in Europe – Hektor stayed with the sport and was trained by Galina Pachin at the Cantebury ice rink.
The oldest of his siblings, Cassandra, also loved ballet but decided at 17 that she devote her talents to fashion design.
Hektor’s mother Xanthippe praised the role his coaches have played in guiding her son and also for looking after him in his long sojourn in Europe.
“Galina trained him since he was a child and she and her partner have been like second parents to him. She is very invested in ensuring her couples’ successes,” said Xanthippe.
Yet Xanthippe, and father Mark, an engineer, were always there to support the children as they followed their chosen paths to the full.
“You work hard and you work with what you got. I would have been happier if the kids had been academic,” Xanthippe told Neos Kosmos, “but if they show commitment, discipline and determination then your job as a parent is to support them.”
Hektor describes skating as an “unforgiving nightmare of a sport. If you fall on full impact on the ice it is hard mentally and physically,” and there were times when he thought of quitting but for his mother’s words: “You can quit but it has to be on a high note.”
Hektor is still striving to reach the high note and working with a partner adds another dimension to an already difficult sport.
“When you train a lot with someone, you learn to understand every movement on ice, you just have to look at her to know where she will be. There is a lot of trust involved. Everyone makes mistakes but you will have trained so hard and so much, that you adapt to any situation (as it arises on the ice) and finish the best you can.”
For Hektor the interlude with the family comes to an end in mid-June when he gets back to training, four hours a day in preparation for the European skating season as well as the Australian Figure Skating Championships in November in Boondall, Brisbane and then it will be the big one, the 2023 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Sydney next February.
See Hektor in action: