The slight, fearless teenager Ekaterina (Katya) Alexandrovskaya from Moscow and the young Indigenous Sydneysider Harley Windsor spent four years striving to become the best figure skating partnership in the world under Australia’s banner.
This is the story of what both pushing themselves and others pushing them led to.
Husband-and-wife coaching team Andrei and Galina Pachin begin coaching figure skater Harley Windsor in 2006. Nearly a decade later, unable to find a partner for the young Indigenous man from Western Sydney, the Russian emigrants boldly look beyond Australia to their home country, a global leader in the sport.
On the Moscow ice in December 2015, 19-year-old Harley finds his perfect match in the tiny, fearless 15-year-old Ekaterina (Katya) Alexandrovskaya. But to compete together on the world stage, one of them must move countries and Katya’s world-renowned coach Nina Mozer can’t convince the Russian authorities that it should be Harley.
Katya and her mother ponder the opportunity and decide it’s worth a shot. Katya will join Harley in Australia, and the unaccompanied minor will live at her coaches Andrei and Galina’s house.
“I could not believe what I was looking at,” recalls Olympic scout Belinda Noonan when she saw them skating together after only a few weeks at Sydney’s Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink. “They are amazing. They’re like world-level now… It was mind-blowing.”
At the Junior Grand Prix Czech Skate in Ostrava in September 2016 – their international debut – Harley and Katya finish eighth overall. Three weeks later they win gold in Tallinn, Estonia. A whirlwind tour of junior and senior events across the globe begins.
Without a shared language, the pair can’t communicate easily, but their skill, elegance and harmony on the ice contributes to their meteoric rise.
The pair wins the 2017 Junior World Figure Skating Championships in March in Taipei, Taiwan. Australia rejoices as no local figure skaters had previously won gold at an event run by the International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body for skating. Russia is not happy.
The Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA), which helps Australian athletes prepare for a range of global competitions, provides them with $59,000 in funding.
The Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany is the final qualifying opportunity for pairs figure skating for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games. Harley and Katya win bronze, despite Harley telling Andrei moments before stepping onto the ice that he feels unable to compete. They secure a position at PyeongChang in Korea.
It will be the first time that Australia has been represented in Olympic pairs figure skating since brother-and-sister team Stephen Carr and Danielle McGrath (née Carr) competed in 1998. That’s not the only thing worth celebrating: Harley will be the country’s first Indigenous winter Olympian and it’s taken a long time for Australia to reach this milestone.
The public and media attention intensifies the physical and emotional pressure that’s been on Harley and Katya since pairing up. Social isolation and an absence of family doesn’t help Katya.
Figure skating is particularly dangerous for females. They are the ones flung into the air while performing acrobatics, which makes them most at risk of injuries, including concussion.
In February 2018, Harley and Katya finish a disappointing eighteenth in Korea.
Katya is asked to leave the Pachin household because of her drinking. She refuses to be coached by Andrei any longer.
With the pair being touted as a medal chance for the 2022 Games, the OWIA provides additional funding – and a plan to send Katya and Harley to Montreal for training. The move is not a great success. Injuries plague Harley on their return and the OWIA withdraws two-thirds of their funding.
Katya collapses in early 2020, not for the first time. She is diagnosed with epilepsy and told to give up skating. Her physical condition has been weakened by diuretic pills, energy drinks and alcohol.
In July 2020, the unthinkable happens.
Fast forward to 2022. Overseas, an ISU proposal that skaters must be at least 17 years of age to compete in senior competitions is agreed to near unanimously. As of 30 September 2022, 68 Australians organisations have signed up to a new national integrity framework aimed at creating a safe, fair and healthy sporting environment. Some call it Katya’s Law. The OWIA is among those who have signed up; Ice Skating Australia is not.
Production credits:
1 x 90 min. A Stranger than Fiction production. Developed and produced with principal production funding from Screen Australia in association with Screen NSW. ABC Commissioning Editor: Rachel Robinson. ABC Manager Screen: Jo Chichester. ABC Head, Screen Sport & Events: Kath Earle. Director: Selina Miles. Producers: Blayke Hoffman, Jo-Anne McGowan and Aaliyah-Jade Bradbury. Writers: Selina Miles and Blayke Hoffman. Executive Producer: Jen Peedom.
Totally heartbreaking, I just sat and cried. Great doco, thanku to all involved especially Harley and Kartya…RIP 😥😢
Don’t give up Harley..God bless
this was brilliant and utterly heart breaking for the treatment of a lonely beautiful young girl