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 Friday
January 17th, 2006
We
are calm, the morning practice was easy and we got good feelings,
we can't wait to go out on the ice, but there's the whole day
ahead to restm we allow ourselves to a nap in the afternoon. When
night comes, we decide to take the bus a half hour earlier than
what we had planned, thankfully! The security checks at the Palavela
are a lot longer than usual and we finally get in just one hour
before our group's warm-up time.
I
go to take a look at the rink... it is more than full of people,
the lights are stronger than in practice, the atmosphere seems
warm and welcoming, you rarely see a stadium this full during
the compulsories, but we're not scared, we've grown accostumed
to the pressure of the public.
In
the warm-up area the tv light are so strong that I have to run
wearing my sunglasses.There is so much confusion all around us,
I have to warm up while a group is skating and another one is
impatiently waiting to come in, you have to slalom between skaters
to do your running and you have to avoid looking too much at their
faces if you don't want their own anxiety to pass on to you.
It's
our tun, we walk down the ramp leading to the ice and someone
recognize us, the Italian tracksuit is unmistakeable, once we're
at the boards we're holding hands, we want to enter so badly that
I am almost afraid of overdoing it.
We wait for the last couple of the group preceding ours, their
marks are being read while, on the outside, we're like racehorses
waiting for the starts... we look at the gate, the look on the
others' faces, on the coaches' faces, everyone starts avoiding
these looks because it is a competition no one wants to endure.
Gennady is telling us that it is only one minute of dancing, while
Paola and Natalia give us the last advices.
These
are the moments of calm before the tempest, when the padded boards
are opened we go in, we're the last and we're in no hurry, we
take off the blade guards and the jackets, we put them on the
boardsand off we go, the first four steps feel strange, we are
not getting the speed we're looking for, but then we get into
the curve, start the forward crossovers, just as the speaker calls
our names, it is a powerful shock of adrenalin that runs through
our bodies, making us take off and fly: this is out feeling, we're
flying, we're as fast as ever, we feel our legs so strong. We
do our trial runs, and I tell myself that tonight there's space
for no one else, even Barbara feels so, and we get off-ice really
calm and ready to wait for our turn.
Twenty
minutes run away, and strangely I don't even feel the need to
take off my skates, I feel so well. We get back to the ice, the
crowd sees us, the previous couple are still waiting for their
marks and the roar of the crowd is deafening, we get in the rink,
or better, in the arena, checking our emotions, we know we've
waited for this moment for 4 interminable years and we don't want
to miss one emotion.
We
skate around on the ice, almost in a trance, without really pushing,
hand in hand, we feel incredibly calm. Our names are called, this
is the moment, we take our established marked point, a "Torino
2006" writing on the boards right next to a judge...
the
music starts, the ravensburger waltz has always been one of "our"
dances, it comes easily to us, Barbara does the twizzles like
no other skater out there and I can skate very close to her in
every move. Everything comes out perfectly tonight, the crowd
is clapping for us, coming out of every curve we can feel their
eyes on us. In the second sequence I find myself thinking about
the next competition, the OD, for a moment I can see the steps
I will be doing in the cha cha, but I immediately come back to
my concentration, there is still the last part of the dance, thankfully
my distraction hasn't brought any damage, I can't explain to myself
where it came from. Carefully we run into the final lift, we have
changed it the day before leaving, and in Torino we must have
tried it no more than two or three times... but it goes well,
at the end the public is breathless for a moment, they seem to
be thinking "is it real what we've seen?" and we're
kind of thinking the same, we took or first step and the competition
with everyone else has now really begun.
We
take our bows, and we go out to the kiss and cry, Natalia and
Roberto are waiting for us, they're happy but calm, we sit on
the bench, what's waiting for us? Will those who watched us have
felt the same great feeling we had from the start? sometimes you
feel fantastically well, and from the outside it looks quite the
opposite...
The
scores come out, we on't understand, with the new system you don't
get immediate references, you have to wait for the total and the
ranking, it looks good but who knows... FIRST!!! Euphoria takes
us over, the Palavela is up on his feet, I feel almost too calm,
almost cold, yes, I feel very sure, in some way I quite expected
this and I was ready, it is strange to say.. I probably don't
realized it completely, FIRST!, at the Olympics at home, in front
of our public.
Going
back towards the dressing rooms I see lots of tears on the cheeks
of many people, these are happy tears of the people who really
loves us. Just a moment before going into the mixed zone, the
area reserved for the journalists, I see running from the tribune
the CONI's secretary, Lello
Pagnozzi: "is it serious?" and I answer "did it
look like a joke?" ("Note of the Translator: it is impossible
to translate the funny expression in Roman dialect, and Mauri's
equivalent dialect-ic response, sorry)
Continued……………………..
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There
are no words to express the emotion I got when, in a moment of
pause, I sat down and re-read all the messages of love and encouragement
we have received in these months. In the days of the Olympics
a real avalanche of messages has descended upon us, giving us
even more motivation to give our best, and then virually helping
us recover for the fall andpushing us forward with renewed energy
in the next competition.
