By IPS Correspondents
MADRID, Jun 11 1996 (IPS)

Blonde, pony-tailed Cristina Sanchez is poised to enter the very heart of Spain’s cultural mystique – the blood and sand of the bullfight arena and a preserve, until now, for men only.

Sanchez will be the first fully-fledged woman matador ever to appear on a major Spanish bull fight programme when she steps into the Plaza de Toros in Burgos on June 29, alongside such leading lights as Rafael Ortega Cano and “El Cordobes.”

For the 24-year-old, it will be the end of nearly seven years of toil for recognition since she first walked into the Madrid Bullfighting School at the age of 17 and announced her determination to become a matador.

Since then she has appeared in many of the small-town rings of Spain and France – the “bush league” of the apprentice bullfighter. And she has faced “the moment of truth” – when a bull fighter must lean over the horns of the bull to kill it – no less than 250 times.

She has not always won – having been gored three times in her career – and she faced abuse and scorn from the macho fans in the cheap seats of “el sol” – the “bleachers” of the bullfight.

One afternoon last August in the Las Ventas Plaza in Madrid, a man shouted out: “Cristina, my daughter, where are your balls (testicles)?”

Someone else responded “in the dishwasher!” and a woman riposted “a woman and a frying pan belong in the kitchen,” while the crowd sniggered.

The jeers gave way to cheers 10 months later when Sanchez marched proudly into the ring at Nimes, France on May 24 to recieve her fighting cloak and sword from veteran Curro Romero at an “alternativa” — the ritual ceremony when a novice bullfighter qualifies as a matador.

After two clean kills that day the crowd rose in acclamation and the newspaper El Pais headlined her triumph over the sceptics by posing the question “Who can laugh at Christina Sanchez now?”

The Nimes ceremony was the last of the many obstacles Sanchez overcame with courage and a determination to succed.

“At first, people looked at me benevolently as a mischievous child. When my technical skills got better they started putting up obstacles which, at times, I thought were insurmountable,” Sanchez admitted to reporters and, despite her success so far, the road ahead is not easy. One top bullfighter Jesulin de Ubriques – known as “the woman’s matador” for his dashing looks and fondness for company of women, refused to appear on the same bill as Christina.

In the history of bullfighting only four women have previously reached the pre-matador stage. All four achieved this feat in Mexico.

Juanita Cruz reached her goal in 1940 and fought twice with the legendary “Manolete.” Bertha Trujillo, a Colombian known as the “dark-skinned woman from Quindio,” became a fighter in 1968. She is now an instructor in the Cali Matador School in her home country.

Mexican Raquel Martinez became a bullfighter in 1981 but had only a brief career before retiring as did a Spaniard Maribel Atienzar at about the same time.

Cristina Sanchez, however, is made of sterner stuff. Even as a novice she achieved fame in July last year when she was carried from the Las Ventas Plaza on the shoulders of cheering fans – the first time such an honour was bestowed on a woman matador. The Same thing accored in Seville in September.

Joaquin Vidal, one of the most respected bullfight critics in Spain, was moved to write that Sanchez “is sure in the way she handles the cape and stick, and adds the interpretation and conception that fans always will recognize as the art of bullfighting…. her technique is is serious and the only relevant feminine characteristic she adds to the art is that she is a woman.”

Sanchez, unlike many of her male peers, does not carry “lucky” charms into the ring when she faces a 500 kg fighting bull, nor does she pray to a favorite saint.

She dresses herself in her “suit of lights” before the traditional march of the toreadors that precedes a bullfight, whereas her male colleagues are surrounded by valets.

Did she have any fears at all, one reporter asked in Nimes?

Sanchez smiled while admitting “I’m scared of spiders and I don’t like being at home alone!”

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