Cleared up the great television unknown that this week has kept the audience in suspense. Rafa Castaño was finally the one who took the fish to the water and completed the Rosco de Pasapalabra leaving her rival for so many months, Orestes Barbero, with honey on his lips. The 32-year-old contestant from Seville won the contest’s millionaire jackpot whose final figure stood at 2,272,000 euros, the largest jackpot in the history of the popular contest.
Rafa and Orestes had been facing each other on the program since June 1 and their duel came to an end this Thursday with the victory of the Sevillian, who managed to complete the famous Rosco of the contest in the most unexpected and surprising way possible: he did it all followed and without giving any opportunity to his rival to try.
The last word with which Rafa completed the Rosco was the one corresponding to the letter ‘Z’: ‘Beetle that attacks the wheat fields, especially when the grains are tender’. The answer: ‘Zabro’. A simple word that opened the door of a millionaire jackpot after the contestant accumulated 197 consecutive Pasapalabra programs and 127,200 euros.
After completing the Rosco, Rafa had a hard time assimilating what he had achieved and when the presenter Roberto Leal asked him how he was doing, his first words were for Orestes and to say that he deserved the award just like him. “The first thing that came out for me is to hug him because he has not only been a rival but a teammate,” commented the Sevillian, later also having a memory “for my family, my girlfriend and my friends” for the support received during this time. Later, Leal surprised him by contacting his parents and his brother to share the happy news.
Born in Seville in 1990 and a graduate in Journalism, Rafa Castaño has become a regular face for Pasapalabra viewers since 2015, when he participated for the first time in the contest that was then broadcast on Telecinco. He returned in 2017 and later in 2019. Three different stages in which he coincided with many adversaries, including Orestes, with whom he already had the opportunity then to compete to get the ‘boat’ in the ‘Rosco’.
However, a judicial resolution meant that Telecinco could not broadcast more editions of Pasapalabra, so viewers could not follow the fight between two of the most charismatic contenders in the history of the format. With the return of the space to Antena 3, the “rivalry” between Rafa and Orestes was revived, although both admitted that they remained in contact outside the program after its cancellation on Telecinco.
Regarding what he would use the hypothetical money from the Pasapalabra ‘boat’, Rafa already commented some time ago that he would like to “do something crazy crazy in this world, which is to do things not to earn money, but for pleasure.” “That money -he continued- would allow you to lie down to read, learn languages ??or study careers without worrying.” Winning the Pasapalabra jackpot “greatly reduces your chances of a heart attack and heart disease” because he, in that situation, “would live very calmly.” And yesterday he added a new destination for part of the money earned: to buy a Betis kit for his nephew, just as he said he had promised.
The last person who obtained the Pasapalabra jackpot was Sofía Álvarez de Eulate, who in September 2021 took almost half a million euros. As for the largest prize awarded to date in the contest, it was 2,190,000 euros, and was won by Eduardo Benito, in the first stage of the contest on Antena 3, in 2006.
