“Barcelona wants to show itself to the world again.” That’s how he sentenced Jordi Hereu in January 2010. The then mayor wanted the city to be Olympic again in 2022, 30 years after the Games that changed its face, and to become the first to light the cauldron in summer and winter, a dream that Beijing has finally made it a reality in 2022 with the winter event, after having hosted the Summer Games in 2008. Barcelona’s flame went out in 2013, but it has been reborn since Pere Aragones took the first official step in July last year.
Enric Truno He was the commissioner of the Barcelona-Pirineu 2022 winter Olympic bid between 2010 and 2013, without special progress. Xavier TriasHereu’s heir, kept him in office until he fired him and closed the office in January 2014, three months after publicly resigning from the 2022 Games.
Ada Colau When he arrived at the mayor’s office in 2015, he also had no interest in reactivating the project. But when the PSC entered the municipal government a year after the elections, it made reopening the debate one of the conditions. A commission chaired by James Collboni in which the impacts of such an appointment were assessed. It was not ruled out, although it was pointed out that reactivating the project required consensus between administrations, so the 2026 Olympic train was allowed to pass.
In search of the lost consensus
The required consensus was utopian at the height of the ‘procés’, but it has been reactivated in the last two years with the work of Alexander White. The president of the COE has tried to weave bridges between the Government and the Generalitat, between Catalonia and Aragon. Salvador Illa and Collboni have gone to Zaragoza a couple of times to try to convince Javier Lamban, Aragonese president, who despite his fuss did not consider the negotiation dead. On Friday the PSC set up some Olympic days with the participation of the minister miquel iceta to reaffirm its Olympic spirit.
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“Other Games will allow us to reposition the city as a center of sport and Olympism, to recover the pride that those of ’92 represented”, reflects Collboni. “The idea is to help make a historic leap. In addition to added value, recover capital status and leave darkness behind.” The first deputy mayor of Barcelona highlights the “economic impact” that a “minimal city investment” would entail, stressing that many infrastructures have already been completed.
In the Barcelona City Council, as happened in 2010, the socialists are the most interested, while the ‘comuns’ do not show much interest, although they have not made any public rudeness, like those that ICV did in its day in the mouth of Ricard Goma and Imma Mayol. In the Generalitat it has not been, from the outside, a subject of significant discrepancy either. After the arrival of Pere Aragones to the presidency of the Government, the new Catalan executive decided to put this matter on the table. ERC and Junts decided to bet on it and in the investiture agreement with the CUP it was agreed that the citizens would decide whether or not to go ahead.