November 19, 2005
Stars on Ice Belgium
by Markéta
PROXIMUS STARS ON ICE 19 AND 20TH NOVEMBER 2005
When I got to know last September that in November for the third time the Proximus Stars on Ice in Antwerpen would take place, I was determined to go there. The only reason was that I had the only chance in my life to see Ekaterina Gordeeva who has been the most favourite sportswoman (not only in figure skating) of mine ever. I saw her picture in the newspapers in 1988, when I was only 7 years old. From that time on I have cheered for her and Sergei, later only for her of course. I took Sergei´s death very bad and couldn´t cope with it for a long time. At the same time I wished her to find happiness again (which happened with Ilia). Later I dreamed about seeing her live. But I am from The Czech Republic and Katia makes her performances in America, eventually in Russia or in the Ukraine. All these countries are very far from my country and I cannot afford to go there. Belgium is the country which comes on force. 2 and 1 years ago I couln´d go to Antwerpen for various reasons. But I felt that this year was my only chance.
I was very lucky. The bus from Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, went on Friday evening, during the night. On Saturday morning I was in Antwerpen. I found a friend, a Czech girl named Keyla, who works in the Netherlands and is keen on figureskating. So we met in Belgium and spent there a beautiful weekend full of figureskating. I found the pleasant and quite cheap accomodation near the centre Astrid Plain. And one girl arranged good tickets (for the both Saturday´s and Sunday´s show) for me and Keyla (and for a few more people). Everything went without a problem and I was looking forward to the event so much!
So on Saturday morning I met with Keyla on Astrid Plain. I hadn´t known her before at all, but she is a super girl and we had always the theme to talk about – mainly about the figure skating (her favorite is Yagudin). In spite of the fact that the show was in the evening, we went towards the hall already in the afternoon. We were very lucky. We had the posibility to take part in the dress rehearsal, which means that we had the chance to observe the whole show (yet without lights, but in costumes) and the training. I just couldn´t grasp so much happiness – to see so many wonderful skaters (K. van der Perren, E. Sandhu, S. Pöykiö, Drobiazko-Vanagas, B. Orser, Ilia, Katia…) face to face. In the Czech Republic there are rarely the figure skating exhibitions with such wonderful skaters (maybe some of you know about the Champions on ice with Anissina-Peizerat, V. Petrenko, Abitbol-Bernadis etc. This one was in our country in autumn). I was really overwhelmed!!
After the dress rehearsal I had the chance to meet Ekaterina. I had always known that she was tiny and beautiful, but in the reality she was even tinier and far more beautiful than on TV or internet. I asked her for stopping and told her that I had been her fan for 17 years (her eyes almost popped out) and that I came here to see her and that I had a present for her. She just stood patiently and waited. I showed her a little black-silver brooch and gave it to her. She just said „oh“ and looked very surprised and delighted. I think that she hadn´t awaited this sort of present. She asked me if I had done the brooch by myself and also where I came from. I was so nervous that I wasn´t able to speak english properly, without a mistake and fluently. I apologized her for my bad english, but she just smiled so nicely and with so much understanding and kept saying that it was ok. I really never expected her to be so much nice and kind to people!! I have always thought that she was a little restrained, not so much communicative with people, with fans. But what I experienced wasn´t definitely this case. She smiled all the time and watched me and Keyla so nicely. She has got beautiful eyes, so serious, deep and honest, and such a little face. I was afraid that she was in a hurry and that she would be late for the training so I tried to apologize her for making her late, but she was absolutely at ease and just said that everything was ok and there was no problem. She just talked in such a soothing way. But I had another gift for her – 5 portraits of her and her family which I draw a very long time ago, after Sergei had passed away. I gave it to her and she was very curious and wanted to browse through the portraits. But I didn´t want her to see the pictures when I was there, as there were some portraits of Sergei too and I didn´t feel the right to remind her of Sergei. So why did I give her the pictures? Because I didn´t want to have them at home anymore, I just felt that it was about time to give them away, to give them to Katia. So I did. She was very surprised by both the presents. So I told her to look at them later on and she agreed. Then I asked her for her autograph. She wanted to know my name, which (I assume) she hadn´t heard before so it was a little bit problem for her to write it according to my spelling, but finally she managed it. She added there Best wishes (later on me and Keyla found out that her handwriting was similar to that of Victor Petrenko). After that I required her for making a photo with me. She was very willing and waited until Keyla made 2 photos (in case that one photo would fail). I thougt that our meeting was over and just kept thanking her and she thanked me for the presents. But finally she looked at me very nicely, gave me her hand and shook it with mine. I was very shocked because I didn´t really expect something like this. It was such a nice gesture from her.. She didn´t have to do it, but she did. It was like saying goodbye, nice to see you…. Some dreams can come true, now I know it for sure…
I visited both the Saturday´s and Sunday´s show. They were very similar to each other. I liked the show very much, especially Katia´s performances. In the first part she was skating to Mother´s prayer by Celine Dion. I like the music very much and so the performance. I am not able to describe the elements in english properly. Katia had a white-silver dress and was so elegant on the ice. She really skates as if she floats. Every movement corresponds with the music, I was just overwhelmed by the armwork and mainly by the carriage of the body which her daughter has inherited. I loved many parts in this performance. Every movement had its sense. As the performance went on, Katia started to smile with the most beautiful smile of her which I have always loved. This performance was a very strong and emotinonal experience for me (especially on Saturday) because it was for the first time in my life I had seen her skating live. I had so many thoughts in my head… It was really beautiful.
Her second performance in the second part was Cinecita by Steve Stevens. I saw this performance for the first time and I fell in love with the music… :-) Katia had a blue dress and beautiful hair which wasn´t in a tail. Her hair was already quite long. At the beginning I couldn´t remember the name of the song so we (me and my friend) called it „Water“. It was because at the beginning of the performance people could hear the sound of the water. I think that the music intented to evoke the water in people´s minds. Besides there were some spanish elements too. The performance was very dynamic, at a full bat, Katia seemed to me in a very good shape. When I saw her skate, I had a feeling that making the difficult elements on ice must be very simple. In fact it isn´t of course. Again she seemed just to float above the ice. And again the armwork, pirouettes, many turns… But when music slowed down, Katia slowed down as well. In the middle part the music gains speed and changes a little and Katia is making a beautiful footwork. This performance was special by the fact that Katia was moving in the circles. On Saturday Katia failed one jump and fell, but on Sunday all the jumps were quite OK.
Besides these two performances Katia took part in the group numbers, which were Call of the champions (the great music) at the beginning of the show, Lany Krevitz: Lady at the end of the first part, and then Sarah Vaughan: Fever at the end of the second part. I liked the group numbers very much.
Of course I liked the other skaters´ performances very much as well. There were: the young Belgian skater Ruben Blommaert (who was very nervous before so many spectators), Susanna Pöykiö (I liked her skating) , Katie Orscher – Garrett Lucash, Emanuel Sandhu (he was so amusing and funny and skates so well!), Barbara Fusar-Poliová – Maurizio Margaglio (I have never liked them…), Kevin van der Perren (I „fell in love“ with him and his Pirates of the Caribbean, he was just amazing), Margarita Drobiazková – Povilas Vanagas (their Phantom of the Opera was splendid), Ilia Kulik (he has belonged to the most favorite skaters of mine since 1995, I loved his two performanes – Too dam hot and Rockit, he is so much talented!!) , Brian Orser (in his age he is still doing the flip-flap). I hope I haven´t forgotten anybody.
Well, that was my trip to Belgium. I am persuaded that I will keep all the moments I experienced there in my heart and my mind forever because they were very special to me and I know how much lucky I was.
By Markéta
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