A snippet of Jelena’s interview was played on Grandstand on ABC Local Radio this afternoon.
UPDATE 13/10: quotes from the interview
Ride of Her Life: Saya Sakakibara
Monday 20 October, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
BMX rider Saya Sakakibara is at the top of her game. She’s won three successive World Cup series and last year took home Olympic gold.
But despite her huge success, Saya lives with constant fear.
“I’ve never been a fearless girl. I’ve always taken calculated risks,” she tells Australian Story.
“I really had to work through every race weekend, have a mental breakdown, pick myself back up again and race the next day.”
As a child, Saya followed her older brother Kai into BMX racing. As young adults, the talented duo began to excel on the world stage.
“We had these two amazing siblings which sounds like something out of a Disney movie…kicking ass around the world, doing amazing things together”, says talent manager, Ryan Chipperfield.
When it was announced that the 2020 Olympics would be held in Tokyo, where they lived as young children, Saya and Kai dreamed big.
Then tragedy struck. In a qualifying round for the Games, Kai crashed badly and was left with permanent injuries.
“She’s gone through her whole life just following his footsteps,” says coach, Luke Madill. “Now she had to train on her own, go to events on her own.”
Saya hoped to bring home gold from Tokyo, but things didn’t go to plan.
Then, after multiple crashes and concussions, Saya developed a fear of racing so crippling she almost walked away from the sport that had defined her. But in the end, she couldn’t quit.
“You’re not supposed to just throw in the towel,” Saya says. “It’s supposed to be hard and it’s supposed to push you.”
In a gripping, adrenaline-fuelled episode, Saya reveals the highs and lows on the road to the Paris Olympics and the inspiration that helped her achieve her dream.
“I don’t think she’s ever going to overcome the fear side of things, and I don’t think anyone in our sport ever will,” says Luke. “I think she’s just going to get more comfortable understand it.”
Producers: Winsome Denyer and Rebecca Armstrong.
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Against The Odds – Lauren Huxley
Monday 27 October, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
“It’s been 20 years but you don’t really ever forget. You never get over it.” - Christine Huxley, Lauren’s mother.
Lauren Huxley was an 18-year-old TAFE student when she was savagely beaten by a stranger and left to die in her suburban home.
Doctors put her in an induced coma and expected her to die.
But miraculously, the teenager pulled through and managed to learn to walk, talk and eat again.
That incident 20 years ago, the manhunt that followed and her incredible recovery, kept Lauren’s face in the newspapers and on our TV screens for years.
“She survived with her own courage and her own determination but a family the likes of which I’ve never come across,” says journalist Ray Martin, who reported on the story at the time.
Now Lauren and her family are confronting a new fear.
Her convicted assailant, Robert Black Farmer, who never pleaded guilty, will be eligible for parole next year.
“That is always very confronting for victims and their families, particularly in situations where there’s been no remorse, there’s been no contrition,” says the detective who investigated the case, Det Supt Jason Dickinson.
“It is a little bit of a concern and worry,” says Lauren, “because he nearly took my life; he nearly killed me.”
As Farmer nears the end of his sentence, Lauren, her family and the police who investigated the case look back on a crime that changed them forever.
This is a powerful story about the lingering effects of trauma, the power of love and family and surviving against the odds.
Producers: Tracey Kirkland and Olivia Rousset .
2025 Final: Monday 3 November
It’s My Party - Kirsha Kaechele
Monday 3 November, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview - 2025 FINAL
Raised on the remote Pacific Island of Guam, Kirsha Kaechele has always felt like an outsider. It’s one reason the US-born artist behind the controversial Ladies Lounge embraces a challenge.
“I want to ask the difficult questions, but I want to ask them playfully and lovingly”, she tells Australian Story. “That makes it easier to investigate things and go into uncomfortable spaces.”
Since meeting David Walsh, the founder of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, and moving to Tasmania, Kirsha has revelled in those uncomfortable spaces.
In her own unique way, she’s taken on one of the island’s most intractable issues – the battle between the forest industry and conservationists – by inviting all sides to a three-day Forest Economic Congress in 2023.
“We need to actually just invite our opponents literally to our parties. We shouldn’t just be in echo chambers. We should drink with them,” Kirsha says.
“It was like an emotional rollercoaster for three days,” says Dwayne Kerrison, a forestry contractor who attended the event. “Big feelings and then some weird art.”
More recently, she attracted international attention when she turned a court challenge to her women-only Ladies Lounge installation into performance art, simultaneously mocking the process and making serious points about misogyny and privilege.
“She dares to be feminine and sexual and to talk about sexuality and those power dynamics,” says artist and curator Michael Zavros. “It’s confronting to men; it’s confronting to the art world.”
She’s the first to admit she hasn’t always received the warmest welcome from the traditional art world.
“I have had to deal with these kind of serious art world critics who just tell me that I’m not an artist,” she laments. “But it gave me something to fight against.”
In an exclusive for Australian Story, the performance artist and provocateur creates some unusual characters to help tell her story - former teacher Sister Mary Catherine, hippy guru Sunfeather and German artist & critic Hans Richter.
“She’ll find some interesting ways to tell her story that may not involve her normal clothes,” says actor and friend Rhys Muldoon. “Her life is her art so be prepared for some surprises.”
The final episode for 2025, It’s My Party is a fascinating portrait of a woman who defies definition.
Australian Story will be back on air in 2026 with more extraordinary stories.
Producer: Robyn Powell.
2026 marks 30 years since the show begun and hopefully the show is rejuvenated somewhat.
I have found the last few seasons to have lost what made the show great.
A shown where the narrative is driven by the talent the story is about and supported by their friends, family, and detractors.
This year we have seen episodes where the topic of the story didn’t want to be involved, or episodes that are just sit down interviews with Leigh Sales. That isn’t even to mention some of the stories are just scraping the bottom of the barrel.