Our trip to Gelsenkirchen began Thursday night, and I soon had to try to speak German with the ticket collector, to explain him that even if me and my friends were on two different carriages we had just one ticket all together Friday morning we arrived in Germany, but we missed the connection from Duisburg to Gelsen because our train was late. Anyway luckily we didn't wait too long, only about 30 minutes, and at 10.30 am we reached our destination. We immediately went to our hotel to check in, and I would have gone straight to the rink to see the practices, but we needed some time to refresh after 11 hours spent on the train! At 1.00 pm Silvia and I finally left the hotel to the arena, we had to hang our banners: one for Valentina&Fabrizio, one for Silvia Fontana, and three for Barbara&Maurizio. No need to say we covered a whole corner with the Italian colours, green-white-red ^^ Later Emanuele hanged his banner above the Kiss&Cry, he printed on it the photo of the starting pose of "I will survive" I took at Trofeo Agorà ^^V When we arrived there was the ladies' practice, we saw the last group, with Maria Butyrskaya among the others. Then we had to leave the rink, as the competition will have started only at 3.00, so we went to the café. While we were drinking something, the parents of Maurizio, Fabrizio and Barbara's dad joined us, and we spent some time chatting with them. The beginning of the competition was approaching, so we went back to the arena. There we saw Kati Winkler, we greeted her and asked some news about René (he had fallen the day before during practice and now had a knee injury ), who had to undergo surgery in Berlin that afternoon. Poor Kati, she looked really sad and worried! Then Melania gave her a couple of presents for her and René. When we were going to our seats we met Barbara & Maurizio, warming up in the passage at the top of the long side of the rink, so we greeted them and showed them our sweatshirts with "Io tifo Italia" written on the back, that means "I support Italy"! It was a surprise and they liked it a lot ^^ We went back to our seats, in the first and second row. As I'm not very tall I have to say I had some problems viewing the whole ice surface, because the boards covered part of it ^^;; Anyway it's amazing to see the skaters passing in front of you so close! And it's also a very good place to give skaters flowers and soft toys! We had Italian flags (and a Russian one too!), bells, whistles and rattles, to make the more noise we could, roses and small gifts to be thrown on the ice.
At 3.00 pm the compulsory dance began, quickstep had been picked. First on the ice were Mosenkova & Sychov from Estonia. They seemed very unsure, their legs were shaking, I think this was mostly due to emotion... Then Dubreuil&Lauzon, followed by the Polish couple, and Valentina&Fabrizio. They skated quite good, finished 6th after the CD and were already very happy with this result. Last of the group were Ouabdesselam&Delmas. The second group began with the Rauer. The only thing I remember about them is her red costume, which I didn't like at all!, and that he seemed to drag her on the ice... Next was another German couple, and then the Japanese Watanabe&Kido. He was so funny to watch, especially his facial expression, but we immediately "liked" them, I mean, they were somehow cute ^^ Romaniuta & Barantesev were next to skate, we supported them too, waving our Russian flag! Last on the ice were Barbara & Maurizio, they skated quite clean, but their marks were not so high, they got even a 5.4 for technique. I didn't expect it at all, I got a bit upset as I had the impression the judges had already decided that this year they won't have any chance to win the gold So I started thinking that later in the OD they were to receive the same treatment. My friends told me it was pretty normal, as this was their first competition, but I didn't calm down!
Then the pairs short program began, first to skate was a couple from Ukraine. As soon as the music started we wanted to commit suicide... it was "Love story"... I mean, as we hadn't "ever" heard it used for a skating program before!!! Please noooo... Shen & Zaho skated second in this group, and I liked their SP a lot! They're almost perferct (well, actually he fell in the side by side jump... ), anyway their jumps are amazing, so high that it seems he's going to throw her out of the rink! Their presentation was very good too, they got pretty high marks. Francesca (the twin) loves them, so she had made a golden banner with their names on it and gave them flowers. In the second group there were Ina & Zimmerman, and John had leather pants on, veeery interesting! ;-) I love their program, it has very sensual moves, it's really well coreographed. If he hadn't fallen on the side by side 3 toeloop, they would have gotten very high marks. At the end of their short they came to the boards to get our flowers too. Petrova&Tikhonov were in the last group, they skated to Nutcracker, and they were very elegant, even if I thought his costume didn't suits him a lot (well, it seems it's quite difficult to find some costumes I actually like! ;-)). Silvia is a big fan of them, especially of Alexei ;-) So when they finished, she shouted his name and they came to the boards, she gave them roses and got back a big hugh. No need to say she was really happy! At the end of pairs short program we had to leave the arena, as the competition will have started again only at 7.00 pm, with the official opening. There was not enough time to go back to our hotel, so we waited there. One floor below there was a counter selling iceskating magazines and pictures, so my friends bought some, and in a number of "Pirouetten", I think, there were pics of A&P's fall in Bratislava second per second!
At 7.00 the opening ceremony started, it was nothing special, a number skated to the music from "Cats", and then little girls carrying flags of all the countries of the participating skaters. The only problem was that the Italian flag was missing!!! They must have gotten it mixed up with the Hungarian one, which has the same colours as the Italian but horizontally. >__< There were some speeches (but I don't know who those people were!), and as I speak a little German, my friends kept asking what they were saying, but as I didn't understand a word, my answer was "Ehm, I wasn't listening!!". I'm not a translator!! Finally we got back to the competition, with the ladies short program. Maria Butyrskaya skated her new short program, I think her elegance is unique, but she always chooses the same boring melodies. What was different from her previous routines was only the colour of the costume, light blue!! The surprise was the Japanese Yoshie Onda, she has amazing jumps, but lacks a lot in coreography. She had a strange costume, one side was grey and the other one orange, with a vertical white stripe in the middle... it looked like she had been run down by one of those machine which makes the stripes on the asphalt! (ehm, I don't know if you can understand what I mean, it's difficult to explain it in English ^^;;;) Anyway, she skated well but I think that 5.7 in presentation was a bit too much! Silvia Fontana skated just after, and of course we made a lot of noise cheering for her Angela helped me to wave the Italian flag, I couldn't do it alone because it's sooo big! She had a whistle (which almost deafened us!), eventually I told her she reminded me of the protagonist of "Titanic", who desperately looked for help when the ship was sinking!! The music of Silvia Fontana's short program was a latin rythm, and she had a great interpretation. She was really dancing through the program, and we all thought there was surely Victor Petrenko's touch too in it. Later Silvia told us he was a bit tense while she was skating! We were enthusiast, but not the judges, the marks were quite low. Ok, she had a little problem with one jump, but how can you give her only a 5.5 in presentation when Yoshie Onda had a 5.7??? Of course we booed the judges! Anyway Silvia looked quite happy when at the end of her program she came to the boards to greet us and take the flowers. Among the others I liked Angela Nikodinov, she's very elegant. Next was the other American, Jennifer Kirk. Her music reminded me of something, and after few seconds I realised why, it was a version of "Puttin on the ritz"! Anyway I wasn't impressed by her skating. Last on the ice was Kristina Oblasova, I was really curious to see her skating, as I heard she obtained brilliant results in the Juniors. She made a mistake on a jump and has still to work a lot on the artistic side, but she seemed satisfied at the end of her program. I noticed that when she does the spins she looks exactly like Slutskya! She finished in 5th place, 1st was Maria Butyrskaya, 2nd Angela Nikodinov and 3rd Yoshie Onda. Then a short break to resurface the ice and the competition started again with the original dance.
First to skate were Rauer&Rauer, and they had awful violet costumes this time too, which had nothing to do with the rhythms chosen (Flamenco and Tango, if I recall correctly). They were quite slow and the feeling of the Spanish dance was completely lacking. We laughed a lot when Watanabe&Kido were on the ice. I have to say Japanese have really strange tastes in costumes (I'm more and more critical ^__-): she had a red costume, and it would have been even nice if he hadn't been dressed in black and... pink!!!!! O_o Then, his facial expression was... incredible! He kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish, each time he passed in front of us we bursted out laughing! But after all we like them ^__^ Last of this first group were Barbara&Maurizio, the only one whose dance had a strong Spanish character. I like the music a lot, and then their moves and expression are perfect for Flamenco and Paso Doble, you can feel the Spanish spirit here! I adore their costumes, black and red, Barbara's skirt is very long so that she can play with it, and she dyed her hair dark, while Mauri looked like a real bullfighter ^^ They were just wonderful!!!!!! At the end of their OD they came to the boards, we were jumping and shouting, making a lot of noise as usual! We gave them roses, and they had to hug and kiss each of us (at least ten people!). Then they reached the K&C (BTW, Tatiana Tarasova wasn't there but sat among the audience so that she could see their OD better, because she had never seen it skated from the beginning to the end). I hadn't the impression they skated it at their best, they got three 5.9 in presentation, but in technique the German judge gave them 5.5... What??? ... Anyway when we met Barbara after the competition she was satisfied because their program got very positive comments. Valentina & Fabrizio skated in the second group, he was in black and she had a red dress, they had a very good performance, much better than in Milan at the national competition, this time they had no problems during the straight line step sequence. They finished in 5th place! Their flamenco has been really appreciated ^^ We were so happy for them, of course they had to come to greet us too (nobody can escape from us!). Last on the ice were Romaniuta & Barantsev, they had a little problem because the music started before the speaker announced them, and it took a bit
before someone stopped it! Finally they could begin their OD, their starting pose was just in front of us, and Daniil smiled ^^ I liked their program, even if some moves didn't look that Spanish to me. This was the end of our day at "Sport Paradies", we left the rink and went to the exit to wait for the skaters. While waiting we saw Victor Petrenko, I asked him the autograph; Laura and Chiara couldn't believe that the skater they admire the most was really standing next to them! Of course they wanted a photo with him! Valentina & Fabrizio and Barbara & Maurizio arrived, we congratulated them on their performances and then we hurried because the last shuttle to the skaters' hotel was leaving. We wanted to catch it too, but it was already full, so we thought we had to find another way to go back to the city centre, but the driver told us to get on, and Maurizio too because he said he would have come back by car. So we followed Barbara, Valentina and Fabrizio on the shuttle, and we were surrounded by skaters!! I was sitting behind Tarasova and Zuccaro (the Italian judge), and Barbara was talking to them. On the right there was the "wonderful" Japanese skater ^__- Finally we arrived at "Maritim", and as Francesca was staying in this hotel we went to her room, while Paola helped Valentina with all the roses she got! When we came down in the lobby Barbara was looking for Valentina, because she had the key of their room, so we told her she had just gone there. But as Barbara went up in the lift to reach her, Valentina appeared in the lobby! We stayed there chatting a bit, and then we decided to go back to our hotel, the Ibis, which was 10-15 minutes walk from Maritim. We were given a plan of Gelsenkirchen, but thanks to me we managed to lose our way Well, in fact we only took a roundabout way, so they obliged me to ask two people how we could get to our hotel, and the surprising thing is that I actually understood what they answered me!!! As soon as we touched our beds we fell asleep, and this is the end of our first day in Gelsenkirchen!