BARCELONA, Spain — A daring young matador made a triumphant return five years after quitting at the peak of his career, enduring a terrifying near-goring Sunday to win standing ovations, a rain of flowers and three trophies — ears from bulls he had just slain.
Rhythmic cheers of Ole! rang out with virtually every charge that matador Jose Tomas provoked with his flowing red cape as he took on two bulls, each weighing more than a half-ton. Aficionados dubbed it the bullfight of the year.
Camera flashes dotted the sellout crowd of 20,000, the bullring's first in 22 years, as aficionados captured Tomas performing in his glittering turquoise-and-gold suit in a city with strong anti-bullfight sentiment.
At one point in the first bout, the bull threw Tomas to the ground and held him there with its snout. The bullfighter covered his face with his arms and rolled away, emerging unscathed from the 10-second episode. The crowd roared with adulation when Tomas rose to his feet.
The crowd waved white handkerchiefs and looked to the judge, calling for a trophy. Both times, Tomas got one — one severed ear from the first bull and both from the second.
He held the ears up and walked around the ring, thanking the crowd. People tossed bouquets of carnations, hats and even clothes into the ring.
When it was all over, Tomas received yet another honor — the profession's highest — by being carried out the ring on the shoulders of jubilant fans. Another bullfighter on the bill, Cayetano Rivera, earned the same treat.
Carlos Ruiz-Villasuso, bullfighting critic for Spanish Television, said Tomas was a bit rusty but had done "exceptional things based fundamentally on bravery."
He said Tomas' second bull was a bit sluggish, but the bullfighter still managed to put on a good show.
"Few bullfighters are capable of adding what the bull is missing. Very few," he said.
Tomas left the ring in 2002, at the peak of his career, without saying why. He told the newspaper El Pais last month in a rare interview that he is coming back because "living without bullfighting is not living."
Scalpers sold tickets to Barcelona's 19,000-seat Monumental bullring for as much as a reported $5,300.
The Barcelona daily La Vanguardia ran a three-page spread on the return of Tomas, whose full name is Jose Tomas Roman Martin, with one section featuring comments from everything from poets to philosophers — all of them bullfighting buffs.
"Jose Tomas is an excellent poet, and like any great poet or great artist he has a voice that is unique," wrote poet Pere Gimferrer.
The newspaper's regular bullfighting critic, Paco March, recalled a now-legendary fight in July 2002 in which Tomas won one of the profession's highest honors — being rewarded both ears and the tail of the animal he had just killed in a masterful performance.
"There rang out an 'Ole!' that still echoes in my ears. It was not a dream. I heard it and I now remember it," March wrote.
Success in bullfighting is a question of having a unique style, a personal flair that breaks the mold that usually makes one matador virtually indistinguishable from the next. And in this Tomas excels, added veteran critic Juan Belmonte of Canal Sur television in Seville.
Tomas gets up very close to the bull — both before luring it into a charge and as its rumbles by — and looks relaxed and natural in his bravado, showing utter disregard for all the danger, Belmonte said.
"You realize that the guy out there gives the impression that he does not care if he dies right then," Belmonte said.
But he cautioned that bullfighting buffs have short memories and will be very demanding of Tomas as he embarks on this second stage of his career.