Olympic champion in ice dancing Roman Kostomarov presented a documentary film in which he was the main character. After the filming process was completed, the athlete said the shoot was “amazing.” He promised that the picture would be brilliant and appealed to viewers to “take their handkerchiefs with them”.
After Kostomarov left the hospital and began to appear in public again, he repeatedly thanked those around him and those who provided support – his wife Oksana Domnina, fellow skaters, friends. This situation was also discussed in the movie.
The film began with footage of Kostomarov watching the opera “Carmen” at the Bolshoi Theater, to the music of which Roman became an Olympic champion with Tatyana Navka. He compared himself to an opera hero.
“My whole life is the way of the bullfighter. For as long as I can remember, I have had to fight desperately against fate, like a bullfighter fighting an angry bull in the arena.
Because my whole life is a struggle,” Kostomarov said in the film.
The next episode is the skater’s hospitalization. He was initially diagnosed with pneumonia, but this was only the beginning of a struggle that cost the athlete dearly. Kostomarov initially remembered what happened to him.
“On January 9, I went to the bathhouse, took a steam bath and dived into the ice pit several times. It was like my body had been hit hard.
I was heading home after the bath and felt an incredible cough, a strong stabbing started in my side. Then they put me on some kind of IV and brought me a chair and took me to the hospital. It was night, they took the phones, they took everything. “I stood up, went to the toilet twice with my feet and hands – that’s it, I don’t remember anything else,” said Roman.
The athlete’s condition worsened, he was placed on mechanical ventilation and placed in a medically induced coma. Kostomarov was then connected to an ECMO machine to saturate the blood with oxygen. However, prolonged exposure to it led to the death of limb tissues.
“The worst thing now was amputating my legs and ankles when I heard I needed emergency surgery. This was the worst, I cried bitterly. “The whole family went through this period hard, but everyone understood that there was no other option,” the skater admitted.
The film showed the story of Kostomarov’s illness and recovery, as well as his return to the ice. After leaving the hospital, he began to relearn how to skate and in August 2023 appeared on the ice in Ilya Averbukh’s program “Love Letters”. And after a while he repeated the “gold” program “Carmen” together with Tatyana Navka.
The film ends with the song “The City That Never Was” – this song was performed by Kostomarov himself, and he did the same in the presentation of the film.
“The main message of the movie is about life and love. No matter what difficulties you face in life, you must struggle and never give up, at least while you are alive. “This is a movie about love, overcoming and the fact that family is the most important thing in life,” said the skater.
He expressed his gratitude to everyone who supported him throughout his recovery process. He also thanked those who first watched the film for his story.
“I have never experienced such feelings, even at the Olympics. Your support is incredibly powerful, thank you for being so supportive. It gives strength to me, my wife, everyone. Tanyuha [Навка], thank you so much, I love you so much. “I would like to thank the doctors who supported me throughout this period and thanks to which I managed to survive,” said Kostomarov.
Impressions from the evening telegram channel Shared by Olympic diving champion and sports journalist Elena Vaitsekhovskaya. She admitted that she experienced very vivid emotions while watching the picture.
“The filmmakers managed to show the terrifying drama of the plot with very simple words, actions and touches.
There’s no visible attempt to heighten the intensity of the tragedy, but that’s exactly why the film chills to the core.
At some points you laugh along with the characters (and there are many such moments in the film) and then reality hits you like a belated wave.
It involves you, not the heroes – they have been living in this reality completely every day for the second year. They throw you there, in the depths of the screen, in its thickest point, and you often cannot understand how this could happen, how you can cope with it and how you can overcome it,” Vaitsekhovskaya wrote.