Javier Fernandez | Page 233 | Golden Skate

Javier Fernandez

I just come back to my hotel from Vistalegre and I'm still feeling thrilled. The audience was so supportive with the skaters, singers and acrobats! My hands hurt from clapping so much. The big surprise was the appearance of Pablo Alborán, who sang Prometo for Javi to skate. The show will be broadcasted next Tuesday in the Spanish channel Gol Tv.
About Javi's performance, I must say that he looks in good shape, his jumps seemingly effortless and he didn't pop any of them.

Maybe someone will be able to upload it somewhere - or at least Javi!

I miss him....
 
Update: The whole Prometo with Pablo Alboran is here
And Pablo/Javi hug is here :love:
David/Sandra/Javi hug :ghug:
Javi dancing with a fan during meet and greet :dance3:

Btw. there's Fire on Ice show on 6/7 November 2019 headlined by Jozef Sabovčík and there was an article about it in a Czech newspaper yesterday, Javi said: I have good memories of Ostrava and Bratislava, fans are amazing there so I'm looking forward to it. I'm working on some projects but I made time for this unique event with my friends. And Jozef Sabovčík said that he was glad Javi said yes (to the show).
 
The 29 December Revolution on Ice show (Madrid) will be shown on the Spanish GOL TV on 1 January at 18:00 local time.
 
Happy New Year and greetings from Madrid! So I was going to write about other skaters and other performances this time. After all, I've never seen Kurt Browning live and he is one of my all time favorite skaters, coming out of retirement just for Javi, blowing my mind among other things with the drums vs skates performance the "boss lady" aka Sandra Bezic invented, and being utterly funny, gracious and hyper during a wonderful meet&greet chat. Or there was Yuna Kim who I've seen live only once, just as her career really took off when she won her first senior GPF, and so it was great to see her exquisite skating again. Or Diana Navarro throwing down a performance for the ages of such incredible power that I completely forgot about the skating.

But right then came Prometo. My dear friend eppen can testify to me mentioning it a few weeks ago that if there was any wild dream come true scenario to materialize during this show, it would be Pablo Alboran performing Prometo live for Javi, knowing that it would never happen really. So there I was, Prometo just about to start, the arena plunging temporarily into near darkess, the stage with the piano in my line of sight, when I noticed that this time someone ran up to that stage and sat behind the piano. We gasped with eppen and broke into a scream right then. His name was displayed on the jumbotron just as he started playing the song and the arena went absolutely crazy.

I can't even begin to imagine the level of excitement Javi must have felt at that moment, stepping onto the ice for the closing performance of his own tour in that deafening roar, to a song Sandra, David and Javi picked all those months ago becoming such a match made in heaven for Javi that it culminated in one of the biggest stars of the Spanish speaking world making a surprise appearance to perform it for him.

I will never forget those few minutes of breathtaking beauty, and I wish I was able to describe the live experience, but it's just not possible. Even Alboran, who must be used to adoring crowds, seemed to be taken aback by the reaction they got. As Javi skated up to him for a hug, the pride and happiness on Javi's face was pure joy to watch.

This performance, and the entire experience of the show really, made me realize and finally accept how right Javi is in his desire to move on. He has had such an amazingly successful career, it's time to enjoy its rewards. To be able to create his own skating tour in his home country, to have sold out performances in huge arenas, to receive thunderous applause after every move, to see people queueing for hours to congratulate him and take photos with him during the meet&greet. And judging by how gracious, humble and kind Javi is through all of this, it couldn't happen to a nicer person. So on to Minsk and the final competition, and then many more of these shows and the amazing moments they bring!
 
Greetings from Spain and Madrid, the promised land of winter sports and figure skating! I arrived there late in the evening last Wednesday, opened the hotel TV and TDP was showing a rerun of the pairs free from the Europeans in Moscow. Then I switched to a news channel where the sports news featured 4 football items and ROI Gran Canaria. That news clip was still on when I had my breakfast – pretty good media saturation for a minority sport!

I/we was/were there of course mainly to see both Revolution on Ice Madrid shows, but of course spent a couple days sightseeing – no, let's face it, I spent two whole days in museums... On Friday night, off to Palacio Vistalegre and the first show. The arena is normally used for bullfighting which makes it quite different from your usual rinks. The central part is round, and the long sides seats looked to be pretty far from the ice. I sat exactly at short side middle which was amazing because many of the routines were designed on that middle line. There were a lot of empty seats mid stands which was sad, because it was well worth the money!

I did see the show in Malaga, but this was already version 3.0 of the whole event based on the changing cast. They had one more live artist, Blas Canto, and Yuna Kim in the version 2.0 in addition to the Spanish pairs and ice dance teams and Javier Raya. In Madrid, two special guest stars in Kurt Browning and Papadakis/Cizeron were added. It seems that Yuna was regarded almost as part of the normal cast… It was much busier than the November leg and even the ones in Murcia and Gran Canaria. It was supposed to be two hours long, but on both nights the show started around 8:45 pm and the first half ended after 10 pm. The second part was a little shorter, and the whole thing ended around 11:15 pm, even later on Friday with all the thank you talks.

Hope you bother to watch it, because it was quite good as skating shows go. I am not a great fan of the Japanese formula of just having a huge number of random solos from various skaters with not that imaginative opening and finale numbers. Stars on Ice is a bit better with more connections between the numbers and a smaller cast, letting it breathe. Art on Ice has also live music and acrobats like ROI, but it usually does not feature themed blocks. Because there were themed sequences – most notably of course the Spanish blocks to start and end the first part and the Chaplin block to start the second part. Two jazz numbers took place towards the end of the second part back to back and the whole show ended in two marvelous and very different stories of love gone bad, Diana Navarro’s El Perdon with Dytrt/Bonheur and of course, Prometo. I hope they develop that further within the possibilities of who they get for this year!

They had also added all kinds of details. The introductions in the beginning were not there in the first leg. There were sound transitions (spoken by Javi), clearer light projections on the ice (e.g. the circular bullfighting arena lines when Jeff and Raya skate before Javi, the breaking ice at the start of the finale). They added a live violin and piano to Yuka's first solo and the start of Chaplin.

I was very excited to see both Kurt Browning and Yuna Kim and they did not fail me. Yuna was a bit like watching a female Patrick Chan with amazing flow, speed and general effortlessness (however, no jumps). And it is so hard to believe that Kurt is 52 years old and that he had not skated for a year and half before this... The mics on blades piece was ok with Elladj Balde, but Kurt's skating skills and showmanship just made it a phenomenal number!

And Javi? On Friday a bit so and so, doubled quite a few jumps, still no axels (everyone else did 2As, though). Fell in Torero (think it was the flip). On Saturday, almost as good as in Malaga – lucky save that one in Prometo.

Friday was personally the hard show because I was there on my own. I realized that over the last season I have gotten completely dependent on my wonderful allies tureis and evergreen for watching Javi and when they were not there, I was at a bit of a loss for not being able share and discuss it all immediately.

And then Saturday. With the extra push for the last show, it felt special from the get-go. The house was packed. Javi's mom and dad were sitting sort of opposite us (tureis had arrived!!!!!). We were close to the corner which was good for most of the show. The singers’ platform was right in front of us and the piano a little further. When it went along, I kept wondering what were the surprises that David Moreno has promised in his intro. When Diana Navarro ended El Perdon there was a longish gap before Prometo – in the other shows it had started immediately. I had just enough time to wonder why when the spotlight lit Alboran and we realised that The Impossible Dream was about to come true. We clutched each other and just wept through the entire performance. And it was indescribably good; it was unbelievable to get to witness it live! The arena just exploded at the end – none of the recordings make justice to the noise! It was still in the news Sunday night.

And Javi’s face and the smiles in the finale – about twice I have seen that kind of happiness before: on the podium with his medals in Boston and Pyeongchang…

Our story continues with the meet and greet after the show. It was hard to know what to expect, but we were promised drinks and snacks before, during and after the show. When we arrived in the area, there was a longish queue for photos with Javi on a stage. We joined it obviously, got snacks from waiters passing by with trays (pretty tasty stuff, too). The wait was long – they changed, did the toast bit for the recap video, etc. before hitting the room. There were hundreds of people there, also those from the VIP seats including Javi’s parents and his favourite girl (the level of fandom when you recognize his girlfriend in a crowd!). Then they arrived, went on stage, there were very short talks, the others went to the area next to the stage. Javi started posing in what must have been hundreds of photos – he had not finished the line when we left about 2 am. (He really is a saint!) We were a little worried that the hour that was said to be the length of the meet and greet would not be enough, but as said, it went on after 2 am when we left.

And we did get our photos, of course! And I got almost a heart attack because he recognized me (with an affectionate smile and greeting!) from some of our earlier fleeting meetings which I did not expect at all. He must meet hundreds of people every year, usually in big crowds, chaotic circumstances, etc., so how could he possible remember individuals from seeing them for 30 seconds or so once a year?? Luckily tureis witnessed it all, because otherwise I might be able to convince myself that I had just imagined it!

The rest of the meet and greet was a crazy and chaotic party. We zoomed in on Kurt Browning and had the funniest and loveliest conversation with him about gazillion things in less than 5 minutes. He is probably my second favorite skater of all time after Javi and to get to see him skate so good and to get to meet him like that was pretty special. I don't know what he is on, but I sure would love to have a dose of it! After wiggling around the Asian fans videoing every move Yuna made, we also managed to get a selfie with her. She did not say anything, but nodded a thanks for our praise of her skating. It was great that they were a bit unorganized and relaxed about the timelines and everything. I am sure people who attended got a lot of pretty unique memories!

On New Year's Eve, we went on a Javi pilgrimage in the suburbs of Madrid. We had a car for part of it which made it possible to see a certain inscription and ice rinks far away from the city center – with even a bit of skating in a public session in one of them. For me, the first time in more than 15 years and I am quite proud that I did not fall at all despite the awful rented skates. The wax museum, Museo de cera de Madrid, was by far the most expensive and useless museum I visited on this trip. His statue is on a revolving base with flamenco dancers, not with other athletes. And when you watch it go by quite a few times, there is indeed a certain angle where for a fleeting moment it does look a bit like Javi. We ended the tour in the evening with the lit Templo de Debod before hitting the New Year celebrations.

This was my first visit to Madrid and I think I can understand why he came back home from Toronto so incredibly quickly after the Olympics. It is clearly a capital of what was a mighty empire, relatively recently built with space and greenery. Even mid-winter people hung outside, having meals and coffee in terraces. The weather happened to be great with sun every day. Madrid is undoubtedly Spanish, but it is also an international city which is great. I have been to Toronto and kind of like it as North American cities go, but the vibe is just not as exciting and lively. And of course, the truly important people in his life, family and friends, are in Madrid.

ROI 2019 is already in plans apparently and I certainly hope to get to go again!

Now of course, we can start feeling a little anxious and nervous about the Europeans. Javi is finally in Toronto. In the Olympic Channel interview from the Thursday night presser, he said that he would have wanted to have a bit more training… (Indeed.) Hopefully everything goes as planned out there!

And btw, he was second in the Eurosport.es vote for best male Spanish athlete of all time! Nadal won with 3800 votes, Javi got 2600 finally and Iniesta was third with 2200 votes. The power of the international community!!

E
 
Thanks for sharing!!
But as much as I appreciate your (and Tureis) writting, I'm not sure that I can forgive you for the wax museum visit. Who waste his/her time and money visiting a wax museum??? What for??? There's nothing alive in there!!! :shame:
In case you come back to Madrid for future ROIs, here are a few things to do to expiate that terrible sin you did…
As you say Madrid is an international city: if I praise its diversity, probably anyone from London, Paris, New York will laugh at me but I'm gonna do it anyway. You can go to Lavapiés (popular versión of UN), just wander the streets, get lost (in the best possible way) and whenever you are hungry, get lunch at a hindu, morocan… for beers in the (late) afternoon or drinks at night Chueca is great and for sports, you can run San Silvestre race on dec 31 (you need your running shoes and a costume, most slowly and fun race ever!), 10 km from one of the most posh neighbourhoods to one of the most popular ones.

And there're a lot of great museums too, but you don´t need my help for that. :laugh:

I'm glad you enjoy my city!!
 
Now of course, we can start feeling a little anxious and nervous about the Europeans. Javi is finally in Toronto. In the Olympic Channel interview from the Thursday night presser, he said that he would have wanted to have a bit more training… (Indeed.)

Yes, we all feel that way I think... but we'll see. Javi can be pretty amazing under pressure...

(now can someone at TCC post some pictures!!!!!) :biggrin:
 
I wish Javi the best training he can have in this limited time.
Plus gettng to enjoy the community he had been with for like 7 years or more?
Everyone is happily waitng for him. As much as we all want updates, Javi we understand if you want to concentrate now and see you at Euros :yay:
(Its going to be a difficult wait :palmf:)
 
But as much as I appreciate your (and Tureis) writting, I'm not sure that I can forgive you for the wax museum visit. Who waste his/her time and money visiting a wax museum??? What for??? There's nothing alive in there!!! :shame:
In case you come back to Madrid for future ROIs, here are a few things to do to expiate that terrible sin you did…
As you say Madrid is an international city: if I praise its diversity, probably anyone from London, Paris, New York will laugh at me but I'm gonna do it anyway. You can go to Lavapiés (popular versión of UN), just wander the streets, get lost (in the best possible way) and whenever you are hungry, get lunch at a hindu, morocan… for beers in the (late) afternoon or drinks at night Chueca is great and for sports, you can run San Silvestre race on dec 31 (you need your running shoes and a costume, most slowly and fun race ever!), 10 km from one of the most posh neighbourhoods to one of the most popular ones.
I'm glad you enjoy my city!!

The wax museum was part of the Javi pilgrimage, could not be missed despite its awfulness! At least we saved 5 euro/person because tureis had the presence of mind to buy the tickets online...

I had limited time because my travel companions had already been to Madrid and after they arrived we had excursion plans to go outside Madrid, so I had basically those 2 days and January 1 when very few places were open. But I did do the archaeological museum (where I got literally teary-eyed in the Roman section because the things they have there are really cool), Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Reina Sofia and San Isidro. And actually walked through Lavapies on my way from Reina Sofia to San Isidro. :) We walked through the city center (Gran Via, the big plazas, etc., also Chueca) a couple of times and went to the southern suburbs as well, so got some kind of an impression of different parts of the city even in this very short time. Also, the holidays were not the best of times, because many places are closed at least on the 31st and 1st. Which was a blessing in disguise, because on Jan 1st we just had a long walk in Parque del Retiro, sat in cafe terraces in the sun etc. A relaxed ending after so many days of constant activity!

I was just sorry that I had had some stomach bug or sth over Christmas and had to eat a bit conservatively at least for the first couple of days. Have to say bocadillo de calamares is a divine invention and had a few as breakfasts at my local El Brillante :love: Coffee was in general quite good in Madrid, we did the obligatory chocolate y churros, also. I managed a quick lunch at Mercado de San Miguel (fab iberico and beef), the few suckling things I was able to eat towards the end were also pretty tasty.

It is always weird seeing you home through the eyes of others :laugh:

And the last show can be viewed or downloaded from here (a google drive, good overall quality, ca 1 giga), just in case you don't wanna/can't use the app or could not catch it on Gol.

We will be going to Minsk and even evergreen managed to allocate time off in her busy work schedule. It will be a long wait until that, not to mention that it will be a long competition week overall... Have not seen a detailed schedule yet, but hope that men's practices are mostly in the main rink which are then usually open for public. Moscow was excellent in that, I think only one of men's practice was in the practice rink. The competitions are on Thursday and Saturday, but at least not late in the evening!

Javi will probably be getting Brian's full attention in Toronto now - it looks like Medvedeva is still in Russia (and she does not have to get ready for the Europeans anyway :(), US and Canadian skaters are of course getting ready for their nationals, but Brian does not have main responsibility for many of them. And Hanyu is probably only just more or less beginning his training after the injury break - if he is in Toronto yet at all (does anyone know??).

E
 
Javi will probably be getting Brian's full attention in Toronto now - it looks like Medvedeva is still in Russia (and she does not have to get ready for the Europeans anyway :(), US and Canadian skaters are of course getting ready for their nationals, but Brian does not have main responsibility for many of them. And Hanyu is probably only just more or less beginning his training after the injury break - if he is in Toronto yet at all (does anyone know??).

Yuzuru is already in Toronto. He went back there around GPF (so a month ago). One of TCC guests posted a few videos and photos from her visit and she caught Yuzuru (the video was removed). He was doing his rehabilitation on ice so he was skating very carefully. It was a few weeks ago. So he might go back to training next week or in 2 weeks (planned rehab period was 4-5 weeks). Anyway, I think that Yuzuru will work mostly with Tracy and Ghislain for some time. Ghislain usually helps him in getting his jumps back. Evgenia is currently in Italy for an ice show but she will be going back to Toronto soon. Maybe even next week. Junhwan is still in Korea. I assume that Ghislain will be with him for Korean nationals. So Javi will probably have Brian for himself for some time :)
 
I'm not sure that I can forgive you for the wax museum visit. Who waste his/her time and money visiting a wax museum??? What for??? There's nothing alive in there!!! :shame:

Totally off-topic, but I visited the London Madame Tussauds' as a child, and still dream about some of them becoming alive occasionally....
 
But I did do the archaeological museum (where I got literally teary-eyed in the Roman section because the things they have there are really cool), Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Reina Sofia and San Isidro. And actually walked through Lavapies on my way from Reina Sofia to San Isidro. :) We walked through the city center (Gran Via, the big plazas, etc., also Chueca) a couple of times and went to the southern suburbs as well, so got some kind of an impression of different parts of the city even in this very short time. E

5 (real) museums in 2 days… Some people may call it efficency, I just call it lack of faith in coming back... Don´t get me wrong, all of them deserve a visit (some of them deserve hundreds, to be honest), but one museum per day is the limit. It's clear that you need to come back next year and you need to run San Silvestre race to compensate and by now you know that there's no other thing to do in Madrid, dec 31 in the afternoon :agree2:

Anyway, it seems that you really enjoyed it and made time for a lot of interesting things. :love:
 
Totally off-topic, but I visited the London Madame Tussauds' as a child, and still dream about some of them becoming alive occasionally....

I find extremely creepy any kind of lifeless imitation of human beings or animals, like wax sculptures, religious images with human hair, stuffed animals… It's a personal opinion, but a strong one, I know. The thing is that the only wax museum that people seems to appreciate is Madame Tussauds' but I don´t thing that I'll ever give it a chance. You can say that I'm biased, yeah. :laugh:
 
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