Burley Garcia|Attorney calls for suspension of Olympic skater being investigated for alleged sexual assault

Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse that may be Burley Garciaoffensive to some readers or painful to survivors of sexual assault.

The attorney for the alleged sexual assault victim of Canadian Olympic figure skater Nikolaj Sørensen is calling on Skate Canada to suspend Sørensen from next week’s Canadian national championships, where he and his ice dancing partner are the defending champions.

“As the survivor’s lawyer, now that these violent and traumatic events have been published in USA TODAY, I’m calling on Skate Canada to suspend Nikolaj Sørensen prior to next week’s Canadian national figure skating championships,” Olympic gold medalist Nancy Hogshead, a well-known Title IX attorney, told USA TODAY Sports Friday afternoon. 

“If he competes, Skate Canada is sending a demoralizing message for survivors of sexual assault. For sport to effectively address athlete abuse, enforcement cannot wait.”

Skate Canada spokeswoman Karine Bedard did not reply to an email seeking comment Friday afternoon. 

The Canadian national championships are being held next week in Calgary. The ice dancing competition begins Friday, January 12. 

Sørensen, one of the world’s top-ranked ice dancers, is being investigated by Canada’s Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner for the alleged sexual assault of an American figure skating coach and former skater on April 21, 2012, according to documents and emails obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

The documents said the woman, then 22, said Sørensen, then 23, held her down against her will on a bed after a party at a condominium near Hartford, Connecticut.

“He pinned me down with his left arm over my collarbone,” the woman said in a report made to Canada’s OSIC and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a copy of which was obtained by USA TODAY Sports. “He pushed down hard on my collarbone, making me gasp for air the moment he inserted his penis into my vagina and covered his right hand over my mouth.”

The report continues:  “All sound at that point became virtually inaudible and it felt like I would suffocate under the pressure of his arm on my collarbone and chest. I pushed my arms against his hips to try to get his penis out of me and I was struggling to breathe. At this point, I feared for my life and let my body go limp as I lay there and he raped me.”

The woman is not being identified because USA TODAY Sports does not publish the names of victims of alleged sexual abuse.

Hogshead, who founded Champion Women, a non-profit legal advocacy organization for girls and women in sports, confirmed that an investigation of Sørensen is taking place but said she could not comment further on any details due to a confidentiality agreement mandated by the OSIC. 

Multiple attempts to reach Sørensen via email, social media messages, his coach and the agency that represents him went unanswered. 

Bedard, director of communications and brand for Skate Canada, the nation’s governing body for figure skating, said in an email, “In accordance with our policies, Skate Canada has no knowledge of matters before the OSIC.” 

Bedard did not reply to several requests for comment from Sørensen himself. 

A spokeswoman for the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada said in an email that the OSIC “operates under existing confidentiality parameters and, as such, the office does not comment on any possible or ongoing matters.”

While the U.S. Center for SafeSport has been notified of the allegations against Sørensen, it has no jurisdiction over Sørensen at this time because he is not skating for the United States, according to a document obtained by USA TODAY Sports. However, that document reveals that SafeSport has placed Sørensen on “an administrative hold,” meaning that if he were to apply for U.S. Figure Skating membership in the future (a process necessary to coach figure skating in the U.S.), SafeSport would then begin its investigative process.

Sørensen, now 34, competed for his native Denmark earlier in his career, then represented Canada starting in the 2018-19 skating season. He became a Canadian citizen in Sept. 2021. He finished ninth at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and fifth at last year’s world championships with his ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry. They finished fifth at the 2023 Grand Prix Final in Beijing in early December and are expected as of now to compete at both the Canadian nationals next week and the 2024 world championships in Montreal in March.

According to the report, the woman said she remained silent for years and never reached out to the police or sports officials because she feared that she would be blamed and that no one would believe her. 

The report said she sought psychological treatment and considered filing a criminal complaint in Connecticut but discovered the statute of limitations for such action had expired. 

Then, on July 22, 2023, according to the report, she opened an online article that included an interview with Sørensen in which he commented about the importance of keeping women safe in ice dancing. 

“I couldn't believe the words coming out of the rapist's mouth,” the report quotes the woman as saying. “It hit me at that moment that mothers would likely be sending their daughters to train with him (as a coach) at some point after he retired from competitive skating, and I could not live with the guilt of knowing I never told any authority figures.”

According to the report, the woman filed her report with the OSIC that same day.