Adventures in Kazakhstan: Kazakh Olympic Champion Denis Ten

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Kazakh Olympic Champion Denis Ten

Three years ago I saw Denis Ten compete in the Asian Winter Games in Astana. Last year, I saw him perform in a show called, "Denis Ten and Friends." It was an amazing, spectacular event filled with Olympic champions and other ice skating performers.

This year, Denis Ten won the bronze medal in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Hooray for Kazakhstan!!!

He came back to Astana for another "Denis Ten and Friends" show and this one was even more spectacular than the last.

The cheapest seats were sold out; out tickets cost 5000 tenge each (under $30), which is a far better price than you'd pay anywhere else for such a show. Our seats were good and the show...

There were about a dozen performers (or pairs of performers), each performed two acts. The total show lasted about 2 1/2 hours.

The performers included Denis Ten, of course, but also other famous names - Joanni Rochette, a Canadian bronze medalist from 2010; Tatiana Volosozhar and Maksim Trankov, Olympic champions from this year; Evan Lysacek, US gold medalist from 2010; Mao Asada, Japanese silver medalist from 2010. There also was a Russian duo, Vladimir Besedin and Aleksey Polischik, who we saw last year, who are hilariously funny. For one act, they came out dressed in tutus, and the smaller guy stood on the larger guy's shoulders, and basically it was amazing (although at times it looked painful!)

The ice skating was amazing, brilliant, fantastic... what other words could I use to describe it? To see all these incredibly talented performers skating, jumping, dancing, just doing their best and having fun - it was a magnificent experience.

For the final act, everyone came out dressed in traditional Kazakh costumes. At times like these I forget I'm not Kazakh, and I feel such pride in and love for my adopted country.

Can't wait till next year!