Harley & Katya

"Harley & Katya" by Selina Miles is a feature-length documentary. It's a well-funded documentary (by Australian standards). It's a sports documentary on the surface, but it goes much further than that; it goes deep into the world of figure skating and into the culture of competition surrounding the sport.

Harley, from Blacktown in Sydney, is struggling to find a matched partner; his Russian-born coaches, experts in figure skating, find him a good fit, Katya. What follows is a journey that leads to Russia and around the world as the two of them, Harley and Katya climb the world rankings.

Both Harley and Katya knew nothing about each other's homelands, and when Katya decides to come to Australia to train, she is not sure if it is Austria or Australia. This is not a love story, but you will most likely fall in love with Harley and Katya, who quickly become a figure skating powerhouse.

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I have to confess, somewhat to my discredit, that I was completely unaware of this real-life sporting tragedy before I watched this feature-length documentary. I suspected a dark ending in advance but must admit, when it was eventually revealed, it still came as something of a shock.

It's the story of two talented, aspirational teenagers from completely different parts of the world, who coincidentally come together to share their mutual ambition to compete at the highest level in pairs ice-skating. He's Harley, Australian and when he meets her, 19 years of age. He has Aboriginal heritage and comes from what you'd probably call a poorish working-class background with no family links at all to the sport. She's Katya, Russian and only 16 years old but if anything she's even more ambitious than him. It's important to say there appears at no time to have been any romantic involvement between the two.

Paired together with a top Russian coach, they settle in Australia and quickly achieve early success in junior competitions and are thrust into adult meets, all the time aiming for the Winter Olympics, which they manage to achieve, probably before they're really ready. She then loses her father when he dies suddenly and now thousands of miles from any kind of family support, it's no surprise when she struggles with homesickness and loneliness, not to mention poverty as she's forced by circumstances to live in her coach's house, giving her no respite from the sport. Unsurprisingly, she develops mental health issues, turning to drink and reportedly a reckless lifestyle, sadly culminating in the shocking conclusion.

Told frankly by those who knew her, with many contributions from recordings available of her own voice, this is a sad tale of young talent being pushed too far with little thought about supporting her psychological state. We've recently seen examples of other top sportsmen, athletes and gymnasts (Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles immediately spring to mind) withdrawing from competition citing symptoms of stress and it's a pity to think that young Katya was too far down the food chain to qualify for any kind of medical or financial support.

As regards the telling of her story, I found it a little tricksy and flashy at times, unsuited for the seriousness of the subject matter, with overuse of jump cuts, overlapping speech and trivially putting up a kitchen notice board to indicate the couple's changing coaches as their career progresses. I also felt it could have looked more into the circumstances of Katya's demise, with no coverage of her funeral or of the investigation into how exactly she fell to her death. I did like her partner, Harley, a candid, down-to-earth Aussie, trying to go on with his career after enduring this heartbreak.

A cautionary tale of thwarted and possibly even exploited young sporting ambition leading to disillusionment, depression and worse, one suspects it won't be the last story of its kind to come to light in the future.

I knew nothing about this pair when I first started watching this documentary, I just liked ice skating and thought I'd give it a shot. Ultimately by the end I was absolutely heartbroken for them both. Let down and failed by the adults that should have been supporting them, they were used up and tossed away. The families were left holding the pieces together, and ultimately they didn't receive the support they needed either.

These kids, and their families deserved so much better. Katya deserved so much better.

I just hope that a lot has changed since this pair were in the spotlight, but I'm guessing it really hasn't.

I had a somewhat open mind without any high expectations about how this documentary would play out and I wasn't the slightest bit disappointed with the way it was painstakingly put together.

It is an exceptional look into the raw toughness of two highly skilled individuals that come together from two sides of the world with differing cultural backgrounds for the resolute purpose of bonding their hard earned strengths to form a spectacular winning partnership.

I found this documentary totally engaging in so many ways as it takes you through all the aspects necessary to make it to competition level and all the seesawing effects of winning and losing.

But it was the visceral psychological effects that initially creep up slowly and then shatter so quickly that will chill you to the bone and pull at your heartstrings.

This is worth a watch.

I love ice skating, I love the competitions, I love the couples and the dance partners. So I have a certain prejudice in loving this brilliantly crafted documentary film.

Well researched, well investigated, delving into interviews, the life of young children who have a passion, a huge passion where their entire life is devoted to one thing.

In this case it is a sport. And the drive, the ecstasy of the accomplishments met with the difficulties of the mistakes and failures, the learning curve.

The idea that we don't take care of your children in their bountiful desire to express themselves be it in sport or art or or or - where funding is an issue and money an obstacle.

I don't want to say anything more about this. I suggest if you don't know anything about their story - then just watch the film without too much pre-research.

Bless those who helped Harley and Katya and who worked with them through the good times and difficult times.

Bring a box of tissues to your screening.