Champion speed skater’s drug rape ordeal as she ‘tried to run but couldn’t’

Exclusive:

Elise Christie, who is training for the 2022 Winter Games, has bravely opened up about a drug rape ordeal and recalled being unable to go more than one step without falling over as she tried to run away

Triple world champion speed skater Elise Christie has revealed she was raped when she was 19.

Elise, now 31, believes her drink was spiked before the attack.

She said she kept trying to run away from the man but could not go more than one step without falling over.

In her autobiography, Resilience, which is published today, the British star says: “I went out, got drugged and then got raped by some random bloke.

“It was a year before I told anyone at all about that night.”

She adds: “I was strangely impaired and my body wasn’t functioning properly.

“I tried to run away from him but I simply couldn’t run. I was falling on the ground after every other step…

“Even in situations when I’ve been absolutely wasted since, I’ve never felt like I did that night. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t get away from this guy.

“Whenever I fell on the floor, he kept running after me, picking me up and dragging me, eventually into [a] taxi.

“I remember – through the brain fog – saying to the taxi driver, ‘Please don’t take me to this guy’s house. You’ve got to take me home’.

“But the rapist was telling the taxi driver, ‘She’s my girlfriend. She’s drunk’.

“At the end of this taxi journey this guy took me into his house. It was clear he was going to sexually assault me and I was repeatedly telling him, ‘No. No’.”

Elise initially thought she could not say she had been raped as she had not been “grabbed in a park, battered… left for dead”.

Get all the latest news straight to your inbox. Sign up to one of the Mirror’s newsletters

She adds: “I felt ashamed, which I now know is completely the wrong way to feel about this.”

She says her attacker contacted her via Facebook to apologise.

Elise never went to the police, adding: “It’s too late I guess. I should have been braver.”

She was raped after meeting the man in a bar in Nottingham city centre.

Elise has three world championship golds, but crashes, disqualifications and injury have stopped her winning an Olympic medal.

Training for the 2022 Winter Games, she has battled back after mental health issues, online abuse and death threats.

• Elise Christie: Resilience, published by Reach Sport, is out today. Save 25% from reachsportshop.com