ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A young Russian sportswoman boasting a promising junior career switches her allegiance to Kazakhstan and goes on to conquer the world.
Such was the story of tennis star Elena Rybakina, who last year won the ladies' singles championship at Wimbledon in a year when players from her homeland were banned from the tournament because of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But could it also be the story of 16-year-old figure skater Sofya Samodelkina, who has reportedly obtained Kazakh citizenship in a bid to reboot her career?
Kazakhstan has a history of picking up stray Russian sports stars, some of whom -- perhaps like Samodelkina -- feel their talents had been undervalued by Russia's sporting federations.
But with ongoing bans on Russia competing in various tournaments, figure skating included, these nationality switches are becoming more contentious.
This controversy applies both to Moscow, which sees sports as closely tied to national prestige, and Kazakhstan, where many are eager to see more homegrown talent emerge.
Streaming For The Exits
According to an investigation by the Russian-focused news outlet Holod.Media, more than 200 Russian athletes have decided to either abandon the Russian flag or compete for other countries after international bans over the Ukraine war entered into force.
The deserters are overwhelmingly chess players. But figure skaters were up in joint second place with 11 known cases of athletes jumping ship to other countries to maintain the right to compete in tournaments where Russia traditionally performs strongly.
Kazakhstan was No. 6 in terms of attracting these Russian athletes, registering 10 in total behind Israel, Serbia, Germany, France, and Poland, according to Holod's investigation.
Samodelkina was not on Holod's list, and it was only earlier this month that Russian media began to report on her receiving a Kazakh passport.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Kazakh Service on August 9, Kazakhstan's skating federation chief Olzhas Besbaev confirmed that he had heard that Samodelkina was now a Kazakh citizen but insisted that "neither she nor her representatives contacted our federation."
Besbaev added that the federation was not looking to take skaters from Russia "or any other country," and maintained that Samodelkina had qualified for the passport via her mother, who was born in Kazakhstan.
Russia's figure skating federation has said little so far, although boss Aleksandr Korgan told the RIA Novosti news agency that Samodelkina's apparent request would not be considered until December of this year at the earliest.
The Russian Internet appears to view the deal as done, however, and Samodelkina has been derided as a traitor in many comments on Telegram channels dedicated to figure skating news.
Currently coached by Russian Svetlana Sokolovskaya, Samodelkina was a big name on the Russian junior circuit.
She is capable of regularly pulling off quad jumps -- leaps that consist of four full rotations -- which experts say will be increasingly essential for podium finishes at international tournaments in the future.
Samodelkina placed fourth in the 2022 Russian national championships among women seniors -- held before the invasion -- but still failed to take one of the six spots on the Russian national team.
This year she placed 11th.
And this month, three-time Olympic gold medalist figure skater and state lawmaker Irina Rodina publicly doubted the teenager's ability to stay competitive at the international level, calling her potential exit from Russian figure skating "not a big loss" for the country.
The Rybakina Precedent
But that doesn’t mean Russia will make it easy for their competitor to change camps, especially as she has represented the senior national team in the past.
Moreover, while some Russians might prefer to see Samodelkina represent a neighboring country instead of the "unfriendly" countries that have snapped up some of their other sports stars, they might feel differently if she were to achieve success.
That was certainly the case with Rybakina's Wimbledon victory last year.
Russian Tennis Federation chief Shamil Tarpischev claimed Rybakina's win as Moscow's own, hailing her as a "Russian product" and reacting angrily to suggestions that his federation had let her go too easily.
Rybakina, who represented Russia prior to 2018 and who faced a barrage of questions about her ties to Russia over the course of the tournament, rejected Tarpischev's assertions.
Several migrants from Russian tennis have in recent years shown improvement while representing Kazakhstan, where oligarch and federation chief Bulat Utemuratov has poured money into their development.
Mikhail Kukushkin, a men's tennis player, was one of the first who made the switch.
Ranked 148 in the world at the end of 2008 -- the year he transferred to Kazakhstan -- he would regularly break into the top 50 in the years that followed.
"Unfortunately in Russia nobody was interested in me," Kukushkin said of his experience. "Kazakhstan came to me and they provided everything, like practice conditions, coaches."
Alexander Bublik, another Russian-born Kazakh tennis star who sports a tattooed map of St. Petersburg on his arm, is currently No. 27 in the world.
The charismatic shot-maker also accused the Russian federation of ignoring him.
But in Kazakhstan, it was Rybakina's Wimbledon win that was a game changer, helping to fulfil the long-term aim of popularizing the sport locally, according to Kazakh tennis expert Yerik Ilyassov.
Since that goal was achieved, "there are differences on this subject among fans. After every victory of Rybakina and other foreign-born sports stars, people ask 'Why don't we develop our own grassroots game?'" Ilyassov told RFE/RL.
"Secondly, Russia's reputation in the international arena is not so good now, and so if you are making connections [with Russia] it could be more negative for the game's development," Ilyassov said.
In Kazakhstan, attitudes toward foreigners representing the country at international tournaments underwent something of a shift in 2016 after Chinese-born female weightlifters Zulfiya Chinshanlo and Maiya Maneza as well as Russian-born Svetlana Podobedova were stripped of the Olympic gold medals they won for the country following a doping investigation.
And the saga surrounding Samodelkina is generating debates similar to the ones in tennis, according to Kazakh figure skating commentator Liliana Alzhanova, who argued that perceptions around the switch could depend on Samodelkina's first performance at a world championship in Kazakh colors.
Were she to gain a top-10 finish, Alzhanova said, Samodelkina could earn Kazakhstan an extra berth in the next edition of the tournament.
But the star's guaranteed spot on the team could also act as a disincentive for local juniors, Alzhanova argued.
As such, local figure skating fans both "rejoiced and paused for thought" amid the buzz about her new passport, the commentator told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service.
