Javier Fernández, the unlikely hero

The skater Javier Fernández —twice world champion, seven times consecutive European champion, Olympic bronze— is not just any athlete.

His origins, his attitude towards sport and an innate and unusual gift in a discipline with little tradition in Spain make his story different from those of other athletes, while reflecting common challenges to those who compete. in the elite

The documentary series

(available on RTVE Play; an hour and a half version is broadcast this Friday on Teledeporte) covers, with more than 35 interviews and the testimony of the skater himself, his sporting and vital path until his retirement in 2019, with only 27 years and more than two decades of career behind him.

The first of the three episodes, produced by RTVE in collaboration with Factoría Henneo, narrates the origins of Fernández, how as a child he followed in the footsteps of his sister in skating and his family did everything possible so that the two could train.

This first installment also addresses mental health in sport due to the anxiety crisis he suffered in his first years of high-level training.

The second chapter walks through his first triumphs and delves into the media pressure he suffered at the Sochi Olympics.

As Santi Aguado, one of the directors and screenwriter of the documentary, explains, another of the topics addressed is the relationship between gender and sport.

“Ice skating is a very feminized sport, and he, even though he is heterosexual,

He suffered homophobia as a child because his friends at the ice rink played hockey and he skated.

For the third episode there are his great successes and his subsequent withdrawal, a topic that other athletes who have gone through that crucial moment in his life also talk about.

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For Aguado, there are several elements that differentiate Javier Fernández from other elite athletes.

“He was always criticized for being lazy.

I like that because the viewer can connect a lot with it.

Much is said about the culture of effort and the level of demand of athletes, and he was also very demanding with himself, but in a different way, with his rhythm.

He claims to take things easy.

Javier's success also has a lot to do with the fact that his coaches were able to understand that there are athletes who do things differently.

That humanizes him a lot, that he himself talks about how he was late, that sometimes he was lazy to train, that he stayed up all night playing Play and the next day he was tired… ”, relates the director.

It also highlights the different attitude of the skater compared to other athletes in the face of victory and defeat.

“When he loses the medal in Sochi and comes fourth, he is surprised how hurt everyone is.

And he takes it as 'it's okay, if I haven't won a medal, it will be the next one'.

It is an attitude, towards life and sport, we would say that it is easy, which makes it closer than other athletes obsessed with victory”.

The skater Javier Fernández, at the premiere of the RTVE documentary series Play on February 23 in Madrid.

Ricardo Rubio (Europa Press)

play against

In the midst of the explosion of documentary series featuring athletes on digital platforms, RTVE Play, the free public television platform, has opted for a minority sport and a different character for its approach to the genre.

"It seemed to us that it was the opposite of the documentaries almost close to advertising that are made on other platforms," ​​says Alberto Fernández, director of RTVE Play, in a telephone conversation.

“On the one hand, it is the story of an athlete who falls and gets up again, he is a somewhat unlikely sports hero, a more artistic person and with a less conventional path of elite athlete.

And secondly, he played against, with a winter sport in Spain, where there is no tradition, and he has to build a professional career from nothing,

and even so it manages to become a world reference.

It was a way of summarizing our positioning as a platform in relation to this content, ”he sums up.

Of the testimonies included in the documentary, Santi Aguado highlights that of the Japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyū, considered one of the best skaters in history.

“I would have liked to explore more the rivalry/friendship that he and Javier had.

They were training together, which is as if Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal had trained together.

His testimony is very interesting because he is someone, unlike Javier, who was very demanding of himself, had a very bad time when he lost, with a very different attitude towards skating.

Somehow they fed back and enriched themselves.

We would have liked to go deeper, but in Japan they were in the midst of a pandemic and the hours we had with Yuzuru were limited”, says the director.

Javier Fernández, in the performance that earned him his fourth consecutive European championship. DAVID W CERNY (REUTERS)

In the documentary, Javier Fernández recalls how, in bed at home, in the first years of skating professionally, he suffered anxiety attacks every night that prevented him from breathing and even ended up with him in the hospital.

Alberto Fernández highlights how the skater talks about mental health and anxiety.

"Many athletes do not have the emotional education to face certain situations and adapt to the circumstances," recalls the director of RTVE Play.

Both Aguado and Fernández underline the importance of the family in the skater's journey.

“It is the story of a humble family that gives everything for their son to try something in which success is very unlikely.

This series tells the sport from the point of view of ordinary people”, says Alberto Fernández.

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