It was a Friday night; I came home late from work. I was so tired. My sister was sitting on the couch channel surfing. We found the channel showing the Vancouver games...the men's long program was about to start. I didn't even know that men figure skated (it is never on TV in Australia except for at the Olympics), and so I was very bemused!
My sister and I spent the group making random observations - we did not know who this Chan was, but he fell a lot - Takahashi needed a new costume stat because the checks were
, we LOVED this beautiful young man at his first Olympics for Switzerland (later I Googled Stephane Lambiel and discovered that, oh dear, he was already a double world champion, it was his third Games, and he wasn't that young...
), and then we thought Johnny was lovely, and we were
and
all the way through Lysacek.
And then came this tall, proud Russian onto the ice. And I said, "I have heard of this man. He loves this jump called a quad. It was in the newspaper."
And then he started moving, and suddenly I was not tired anymore, and I didn't need to know anything about skating, or the jumps, or the scoring, or anything else, to know that...here was someone more special than anything I had ever seen. He carried himself with pride and assurance; he was the best and he knew it, but it was not arrogant. He moved with power and certainty, grace and beauty; he skated with passion and joy. He looked like he was having fun, enjoying every moment of his time in the spotlight, and in that moment, my heart ached to know his joy, I wanted nothing more than to feel what he felt, to know more about this golden, magnificent angel who I could not tear my eyes away from.
In the weeks that followed, I spent hours on Youtube, Wikipedia, all places, learning and learning and learning about my new golden hero. With every performance I saw I saw a repeat - that bright, shining charisma, that proud, powerful charm that draws all to him.
And still to this day no-one has yet caught me the same way he did, no-one has yet repeated that magical night for me. It was Artur's long, lyrical line and yet shy, sad face that drew me in; Joshua's long, classical body and magnificent rise to redemption. Jason's bright, bubbly personality, his ability to make you watch, caught me. For all of Artur, Joshua and Jason, there is one program of theirs that has that same magic power Zhenya cast that day; for Artur, it is The Bolt; for Joshua, the magical Rach program; for Jason, the beautiful Liebestraume. And yet it is but one program, and one program only; for Zhenya, it is every single program that can entrance me.