The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced its new policy for the protection of the female category in Olympic sport, under which only "biological women" will be able to compete, a rule that will apply from the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. The new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, had already explained during the elections a year ago that she was in favor of a policy of this kind, and this Thursday she has made the regulation official, which means closing the door to trans women in the next Games.

The artistic swimming team's training session at the CAR in Sant Cugat has ended and Iris Tió, world champion, He stays in the pool a little longer, doing his exercise to the rhythm of theHymn to love sung by Céline Dion. Her teammates, already heading to the showers, know the song by heart and sing it amidst jokes. After hours in the pool giving it their all, a great atmosphere reigns in the group, and it's contagious. Working with Andrea Fuentes (Valls, 1983) as head coach is like that. With four Olympic medals as a swimmer, Fuentes has lived a thousand lives, always ready to listen and learn. To know how she wants to live and how she wants to train, creating positive work environments. Now she's thinking about the 2028 Games while coaching the Spanish team after her American adventure, where she won a silver medal. An adventure that left its mark on her.

The Trump administration is watching with some unease how many Olympic athletes have lost their fear. At the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezo, many American Olympians criticized Trump's policies, especially those related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the dreaded ICE. The most outspoken was Gus Kenworthy, a skier who won a silver medal in freestyle skiing at the 2014 Games. The 34-year-old skier posted a photo on social media showing his feet and a message written in the snow that could be interpreted as having been written with his urine. It read,Fuck ICE"It must be said that Kenworthy, a very popular figure because he is also an actor in action films and YouTuberHe decided in 2022 to stop competing as an American and do so as a British, although he was born in England, the son of an American father and a British mother, but by the age of three he was already living in Colorado.

Viewers in Norway watching the Olympic Games live on NRK were stunned by what they were seeing. Sturla Holm Laegreid had just won the bronze medal in the 20km biathlon and, when interviewed about his sporting success, launched into an astonishing monologue. "There's someone I wanted to share this with, even though she might not be watching. Six months ago, I met the love of my life: the most beautiful and kindest person in the world. And three months ago, I made my biggest mistake: I cheated on her." The journalist was just as surprised as the viewers.

Everything is ready in Italy for the Winter Olympics. The opening ceremony will be held at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan, although some competitions already began on Wednesday in preliminary rounds, with an initial scare when the lights failed in the curling hall. The third Winter Games held in Italy so far have the home team fielding a large delegation hoping to win medals against traditional powerhouses like Austria, Germany, Norway, the United States, and Canada. These Games, still without the sanctioned Russia, are exploring a model with different venues throughout the Alps—never before have there been so many sub-venues and such a large territory—and with sports making their debut, all in an effort to create competitive and spectacular Winter Games in the context of climate change. However, unlike four years ago in China, the weather has cooperated, with heavy snowfall.

Italy is preparing for the Winter Olympics, to be held from February 6 to 22 in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezo, and many international delegations have already arrived in the country. Milan is being fortified to ensure maximum security for the athletes in the coming weeks. But what no one expected is that, along with the extensive police deployment surrounding both cities, there will also be members of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), just as these agents are under scrutiny for recent raids against immigrants and the violence of their operations. have cost the lives of two US citizensRenee Good and Alex Pretti, on the streets of Minneapolis.

If Bernat Solà (Mataró, 1965) had been born in another country, perhaps a film would have been made about him. For more than a decade, this man from the Maresme region carved out a place for himself among the world's best springboard divers. Despite the lack of a strong tradition in the sport, Solà participated in two Winter Olympic Games and led strikes to defend athletes' rights. Suffering falls and living far from home, he earned the respect of foreign divers in a sport that, just as he retired, disappeared in Spain. Now nobody dives in Catalonia. In part, because there are no more springboards left in the Pyrenees.

Cheating in sports is nothing new. Even in Ancient Greece, some boxers cheated and offered money to their rivals to throw matches, since everyone wanted a laurel wreath and to be admired. The desire for victory, the dream of fame, or the pressure to succeed have led thousands of athletes to disregard all moral principles and cheat to get their way. And this includes doping, which is also not new. "It almost originated at the same time as professional sport in the late 19th century," explains Paul Dimeo, a professor at the University of Stirling, in a recently published study. Doping, between glory and deceit (Route Books) in conjunction with April Henning, from the University of Edinburgh.

Little Clara has already grown accustomed to the noise and the colors of the pool. She opened her eyes as everyone congratulated her mother. Fifteen months after her last match, Judith Forca (Sabadell, 1996) returned to water polo, playing in her team CN Sabadell's victory over CN Mataró in a penalty shootout (14-12) last Wednesday. Forca, 29, provided two assists in her first match since the Olympic final in Paris, where she realized one of her dreams: winning Olympic gold. Then came an even more beautiful dream: Clara. "I wasn't nervous, but I was really looking forward to it. I've been training for months and I missed it, being able to play, the contact with another team, putting on my water polo swimsuit, my cap... I'm very happy," she explained to Ràdio Sabadell.

One of the new additions to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles will be the return of North America's oldest sport: lacrosse. A team sport with 10 players, the objective is to score goals in a net defended by a goalkeeper. The small rubber ball is passed using a stick with a net at the end. This electrifying game is first documented around the year 1100 in the region of what is now New York State, where it was played by various Iroquois tribes as part of rituals and festivities. These wild matches involved hundreds of players and could result in broken bones or even death. Lacrosse was included in the Olympic program in 1904 and 1908, with two Canadian victories, but its popularity subsequently declined. It was a demonstration sport in 1928, 1932, and 1948. After that, it disappeared from the Games until now.

Alberto Ginés (Cáceres, 2002) hangs from a wall with one hand and waits for his photo to be taken. His life is spent hanging from the walls. In 2021, he surprised everyone by becoming the first Olympic climbing champion in history at the Tokyo Olympic Games, when the sport was just making its debut on the Olympic calendar and few people knew who this 18-year-old from Extremadura was. The athlete has been living in Catalonia for years because he wanted to train at the Sant Cugat CAR (Car Park) in Catalonia. A different young man, he has learned Catalan and shows a curiosity for the world that goes beyond climbing walls. This summer, he read De Vigan, Dostoevsky, and Murakami, at the end of a season in which he won World Cup gold, although he narrowly missed out on a World Cup medal. By one move. By a centimeter.

Twenty-five years ago, Gervasio Deferr (Premià de Mar, 1980) won a gold medal in the vault at the Sydney Olympic Games, a feat that seemed like science fiction. No Spanish gymnast had ever managed to displace Russians, Japanese, Americans, or Chinese from the top of the podium. But on September 25th, twenty-five years ago, Deferr reached the pinnacle of success with that gold medal in Sydney's Superdome. Few people imagined then what would happen next. Like Icarus, he tried to fly and burned his wings, falling into a hell of injuries, drugs, and accusations.

In the narrative that typically accompanies the celebration of the Olympic Games—especially from the institutions that organize them—there are three recurring elements: effort, success, and transformation. It's as if the cities that host the event, like the athletes, had to experience a dramatic arc of overcoming, an epic race in which there seems to be no room for error or failure. It's against this backdrop of great expectations and triumph that the small story of Blandine, the film's discreet protagonist, unfolds. This summer in Paris, who travels alone from Normandy to the excited and bustling Paris of the recent Olympic Games to watch the swimming competition and reunite with her sister Julie, whom she hasn't seen for ten years. But things don't go as she expects: first, she's stuck outside the Olympic pool because she has nowhere to leave her backpack, and on her 30th birthday, she's expelled from a youth hostel for being overage. Furthermore, despite Blandine's interest in reconnecting with her sister, she seems more interested in rebuilding her sexual and emotional life, which has been disrupted by a recent divorce, than in rekindling old family ties.

When you think of the Olympic Games, it's hard not to imagine the voice of Ernest Riveras (Barcelona, 1964). The Catalan journalist has a wealth of experience from many editions, some as a special correspondent and others as a commentator. The hidden history of the Olympic Games (Almuzara), a book full of anecdotes that emphasizes the geopolitics of sport.

The time it took Tom Daley to cross the 10 meters from the diving board to the water (1.6 seconds) is the name of one of the most popular documentaries of the moment. The audiovisual production traces the extraordinary sporting career of the British athlete, who made his Olympic debut at the age of 14. His record of achievements includes five Olympic medals: one gold, one silver, and three bronze.

From the stands of the Josep Marquès stadium, he points to a chalet behind the benches, on the other side of the pitch. "We were there dancing because we had won a league title with Atlètic Terrassa. I looked at my watch and realized it was time to go to Mass. I must have been terrible [due to the alcohol I'd consumed], but I went," Litus Ballbé (Terrassa, 1985) recalls to ARA. "It wasn't an obligation; I felt like it. I was still wearing my tracksuit; I must have smelled bad, so I went to the back of the church," he continues.

Barcelona has several outstanding debts to its icons. Peret, the king of rumba, has been waiting for a street for over six years, and Copito de Nieve's path to becoming part of the city's street name list is longer and more arduous than the one that took him from Equatorial Guinea to the Catalan capital. Since the opening of the 1992 Games, the city has a sculpture that pays tribute to her. Now, hidden and half-abandoned for years. Down some stairs from Ronda Litoral, there's a closed and fenced-off establishment. A beach bar that once housed a restaurant, but is now covered in graffiti and protected by metal fences. A gamba like the one the artist has in Port Vell to crown a bronze fountain

"Since I was 20, I've had to deal with tough men who have high-profile roles," said the new president of the International Olympic Committee a few days ago. Kirsty CoventryThe former Olympic swimmer, the first woman to hold this position when she takes over this July after win the elections a few weeks ago, has already understood that her first years in office will be determined by one name: Donald Trump. The next Summer Olympics are scheduled to take place in 2028 in Los Angeles with Trump in the White House, and some states are threatening a diplomatic boycott of the event if the US president continues his misbehavior. "Communication with Trump will be key," says Coventry.

Months and months of negotiations and controversy are about to come to an end, and everything points to an acrimonious one at that. The 2030 Olympic Games bid is on the ropes and, as ARA has learnt, this week the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) could backtrack and announce that it is giving up on the bid. Several sources involved in the negotiations –both from Madrid and Catalonia– explain that the end is nigh. It could be announced at a meeting in Barcelona between representatives of the Generalitat and the COE, which have continued to show their understanding despite their disagreements with Aragon. The tension with the Aragonese government is, in fact, the reason behind the failure of the 2030 bid. Although the COE was willing to work with Catalonia alone, the Spanish government has always been reluctant towards this possibility: it is not interested in a political battle between regions that could be perceived to favour the Generalitat. Lambán himself has already let it slip on some occasions and it is a ground for criticism from the right with little under a year to go before the general elections, and Andalusian, local and regional elections coming up in between.

That the 1992 Games opened Barcelona to the sea is a Barcelona urban planning cliché. But the opening was made mainly in the central part of the city and the sides for later. Then came mega projects such as the Forum to bring together parts of the areas which had been left behind. And now the city council claims that it is beginning the transformation of the last stretch of the city's coastline: the one that goes from Mar Bella beach to the Forum and, therefore, connects Barcelona with Sant Adrià de Besòs. Deputy mayor for Urbanism, Janet Sanz, considers it a "historic debt", and says that the Council seeks to put an end to the car park that was in front of the beaches – already closed down during the pandemic – and have a new "park-promenade".