When Raquel Sánchez Silva was asked to present El conquistador with Julian Iantzi, the new adventure reality show that comes to La 1 in the new season, she assures that she felt “like the new one”. It is not the first time that she has faced a program of this type, she has already been in charge of Peking Express or Survivors, but, despite everything, she admits that she was surprised that they thought of her for this new project.
“As a communicator, I try to do other things, but not everything is equally good to me, and it turns out that in adventure the card almost always fits,” he reflects after six seasons at the helm of Masters of Sewing. “I would love to do everything just as well, convince just as well, but it seems that when I get a ray of sun, bugs bite me or there’s someone screaming or crying on the sand, that’s the place where I feel best “, Add.
Raquel Sánchez Silva is one of the people who can best compare El conquistador with other adventure reality shows broadcast on television, and assures that this program, which has been triumphing on the EiTB for 19 seasons, has “nothing to do” with other similar formats.
His tests are “extreme”, they really push the contestants to the limit; everything that is broadcast is “real”: there is no second chance; and the way of narrating it is very different from that used in other reality shows recorded in nature: “When I do my job best here is when I am quietest. Everything is oriented so that the protagonist is the contestant.”
Of his co-presenter, Julian Iantzi, he assures that “it is wonderful”. A mutual feeling, since the Basque returns her compliment and describes her as “a machine” on television.
After having directed this space for almost two decades on Basque public television, Iantzi is the quintessential host of El conquistador. The program is like a son to him and he acknowledges that making the leap to RTVE is “enriching” professionally, although he insists that the reality show will continue to be “just as hard” as when it was only broadcast in the Basque Country.
Asked what it takes to win, Iantzi flaunts the famous saying: skill is better than strength. “There are many people who reach the final and they are not the typical CrossFit decks. That can help you win tests, but if you are not so fit but you are intelligent, a strategist and you know how to move well in the tests, you stand in the end of the program without wearing yourself out,” he reflects.
When you’re screwed you have to bring out the animal you have inside. The mind pulls the body when it can’t anymore
Iantzi considers that the program is “a gift” for anyone who wants to get out of their comfort zone and test their physical and mental limits, especially because of the teachings it transmits. “When you’re screwed you have to bring out the animal that you carry inside, the conqueror that lives inside you. Because when the body can’t, the mind pulls it; but the other way around, no,” he says. In fact, he assures that there are contestants who leave the program because they find it too hard, and “after half an hour you give them a broth and a bun and they say: ‘Holly, what am I doing here. I could have endured a little more'”.
Since its premiere in 2005, the program has achieved audience averages that exceed 20% of the screen share in the Basque Country, it is a trending topic every day it is broadcast and has managed to engage an audience that is not given to sitting down and watching television. : Young. The presenter is confident that the trend will now be transferred to RTVE. “We are a small horse that has beaten Thoroughbreds for years,” he muses.
Both agree that presenting El conquistador has also been an extreme experience for them. They shoot for six weeks in Los Haitises National Park, with a climate of extreme heat and humidity, and the marathon recording sessions often start at five in the morning and require full availability. The extreme of the experience includes a most peculiar local fauna, with tarantulas, rats and gnats, tiny mosquitoes that cause tremendously irritating bites.
“It’s the toughest set on television but it’s also the one that gives you the most opportunities,” admits Sánchez Silva. “El conquistador is the only adventure in the world in which it starts to rain, jarretarte above, and the recording does not cut,” he advances.
The two presenters have had very different ways of living the experience. Julian Iantzi did not want to know anything about the SIM card that gives them production to have an Internet connection on their mobile during the time they spend recording in the Dominican Republic. In his case, he prefers to take advantage of these weeks to do a “mental cleansing” and be “disconnected from the world for a month.”
It is the toughest set on television but it is also the one that gives you the most opportunities
However, her partner does maintain a greater connection with her life off the island and, in addition, she acknowledges that she has needed time to feel safe in the format. “The first five days I had my own adaptation phase because I trusted myself less than 20 years ago. For a matter of age, I thought that I was not going to put up with it the same, I know the hours that are worked in an adventure program”, remember.
After that stage, she admits that she feels “physically, more powerful than ever, as if she were 30 years old.” The biggest challenge for her has been her, she says, controlling the adrenaline of the players and her own after experiencing moments of tension: “I had never had the feeling that a situation was going to pass me by, and here I did has passed”.
Asked if they would like to try the contestants’ experience for themselves, their reactions are opposite. Raquel Sánchez Silva refuses: “There is evidence that borders on the impossible.” Julian Iantzi, on the other hand, his eyes shine just thinking about it: “Doing the tests makes me very horny.” He is usually not allowed to participate for security reasons, but from time to time he breaks the rule.
At the end of the latest edition of El conquistador del Caribe, he was able to test one of the most iconic challenges, which consists of jumping from a springboard located 19 meters high: “It’s impressive, but that’s what’s good. The brave is the one who has fear and overcomes it. He who does things without fear is not brave”.
