Harley & Katya

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.

This documentary will not disappoint, even if you are not a fan of competitive ice skating.

The narrative is strong and interviews are well done and included with amazing footage of the pair training and competing. It also gives you a wonderful insight into the world of competitive ice skating in Australia and the battles the athletes have emotionally, physically and financially.

It is a wonderfully engaging documentary and I was fully captivated the whole time and sad to see it end.

It is also devastatingly sad to know what Katya was going through and what she had went through in her pursuit of excellence.

A definite must watch.

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 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.

7.0 stars.

As I meander through this very very sad documentary, I can only think to myself: what a crying shame. We take the lives of spectacular athletes for granted. These are people.

Katya had a lot of pressure in her life and apparently it was too much to handle. Add to this the fact that she had multiple organ problems and possibly alcohol induced epilepsy? From what I've read, alcohol induced epilepsy is just another way of saying: severe alcoholism. The way that she died... How she was alone in a cold place in a cold country, where she might have been under-appreciated... I've said this before, I repeat it: so many great athletes, politicians, celebrities, heroes, have died lonely and disillusioned by what they thought was a medical comrade..."na-zda-roh-vye?" Not so much.