A Catalan app designed in Tarragona aims to revolutionize the world of women's training. "We are developing an application that uses artificial intelligence to help women understand their menstrual cycle. This allows for controlling all symptoms and adjusting personalized training recommendations in real time. The added value is to provide progressions, intensity, or volume," summarizes Àngel Miguel, one of the co-founders of Drop It.The app caught the attention at the Indescat AI Summit, where it was voted the most interesting proposal from a pitch with six start-ups from the sector. “During the menstrual cycle, women go through four phases and each requires different training. There are applications on the market that allow tracking their period and symptoms, but few adapt it to real decisions in the field of training. We are looking for personalized sessions that adapt in real-time to each woman's performance. We have created a method that takes all the user data, both those they record themselves and those provided by the most common apps. Our artificial intelligence detects patterns and gives recommendations. The objective is to generate a unique model for each woman that specifically adapts to her cycle and her symptoms,” analyzes Miguel.

Enjoying an exceptional panoramic view and being able to glimpse, in a 360-degree turn, the Girona plain, the Medes Islands, the Montgrí massif, the Pyrenees, Montseny, the Rocacorba mountain range, and the Guilleries mountains is well worth the effort required for the now legendary Subida a los Ángeles (Ascent to the Angels), with its climb known as Matahomes and a route with a significant elevation gain of 425 meters in just 9 km. Difficulty and scenic beauty (not only that enjoyed once you reach the summit, but also that offered by the entire route, in the heart of the Les Gavarres massif, with such attractive spots as the Bishop's Fountain and the Olivet d'en Sauleda) converge in this race, which celebrates its 62nd edition this Sunday. Established in 1964 by the Gironí Excursionist and Sports Group (GEiEG), it is the oldest mountain race in the State and, despite its difficulty, each year it brings together more than five hundred participants in the three modalities: competitive, popular and inclusive, the latter for people who go in wheelchairs.

In 1951, after a hunting trip, Sir Hugh Beaver and his friends got into a heated discussion about which game bird was the fastest. They couldn't reach a definitive conclusion because there was no book compiling an official list of this feat. As it happens, Beaver was the managing director of the Guinness brewery, and that discussion in a Wexford County pub led him to commission a book of facts and figures, initially intended as a promotional campaign for Guinness beer.

Àngela Mora (Maials, 2004), an athlete from Club Gimnàstic FEDAC Lleida, is making history. In 2021, in Pamplona, ​​she became the first athlete with Down syndrome to participate in a Spanish National Artistic Gymnastics Championship. After her recent triumph at the Special Olympics in Oslo last September, she now plans to participate in more international competitions, such as the one to be held in Atlanta, USA, next February.

The Sant Andreu Sports Union (UESA) is a century-old sports club currently enjoying a period of great success. Membership, which was under a thousand in 2020, has grown exponentially in the last five years, now exceeding 5,000 season ticket holders. The close relationship between the club, players, and fans is one of the reasons why supporters of Barça or Espanyol are drawn to Sant Andreu as their second or even first team. Initiatives like Avisgol, a team of senior citizens who play what's known as walking football, further strengthen the bond between the club and its members, especially the older ones. Walking football, or foot football, is a new variant that aims to reduce the risk of injury by eliminating physical contact. To prevent anyone from getting hurt, running, touching the ball more than three times, or playing it above head height are not permitted. The remaining rules are still in the experimental phase, but all are based on the principle of prioritizing the safety of the players' bodies. The aim is to adapt the classic rules of the sport to a safe practice for older people, who cannot be subjected to collisions, 50/50 balls, tackles or other actions of traditional football, because they compromise their physical integrity.

In many cases, children reach adolescence with a sport under their belt. They started practicing it as children, in elementary school, and if it's a team sport, their commitment to competitions and their peers guarantee continuity during this period of change. But what about those who haven't played a team sport or regularly? If they haven't shown interest as children, it's hard for them to get hooked on a team sport at thirteen or fourteen. But this is neither impossible nor should it limit the highly recommended and necessary practice of sports. Miguel Ángel Méndez Pérez, a professor of health sciences at the UOC, is very clear about what families should keep in mind to achieve this goal.

1. Cervera, La Segarra. Night of May 20, 1992. Roser is watching the European Cup final on television. Koeman scores the most important goal in Barça's history, and in the euphoria of the moment, the woman jumps, falls to the ground, and breaks her ankle. Despite the pain, Roser and Julià decide to celebrate that victory with gusto, and just nine months later, their son is born. Marc Márquez i Alentà is the fruit of joy and a fall. These are two of the characteristics that, over time, we have seen most often in the prodigious career of the motorcyclist. Marc is a compulsive smiler, an optimist by nature, a human being who, with this attitude, you can already guess that he will always achieve his goals. It's also true that in the last six years he has fallen off his motorcycle a hundred times and has suffered all kinds of injuries. The most serious, the crash in Jerez in the year of the pandemic. After being left like a human wreck, anyone else would have parked their bike and walked away.

Barça is more than just a club. That's what its motto says, and that's what it tries to convey through its sections. But beyond basketball, handball, indoor soccer, and roller hockey, there are the amateur sections. One of these disciplines in which the Blaugrana team triumphs is athletics. At the last Spanish Championships, held at the beginning of August in Tarragona, the Catalan club won a total of four medals: Héctor Santos (gold in the long jump), Bernat Erta (gold in the 400 meters), Carmen Rosales (bronze in the long jump), and Pablo Sánchez-Valladares (bronze). These medals, beyond their sporting prowess, hide stories of overcoming challenges.

"If you have the ball, the other guy doesn't have it," you said one day. "Yes, and you still play with a ball, right?" And the crowd burst into laughter. opening the lineup and Basora, César, Vila, Moreno and Manchón closing it. 1877… We wouldn't finish.

Joan Maria Pou (Barcelona 1974) is a journalist. Since 2000, he has been reporting on FC Barcelona matches for RAC1.

She lost her mother very early. "My mother died very young, at 26, when I was seven months old. Then we went to live with my grandmother in Sant Gervasi, until I was 12."

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The first time Paola Manjón de Olañeta played with a basketball was with her mother, who bought it for her to keep her entertained. Born in Santo Domingo in 1998, she was adopted when she was 2 years old and has always lived in Catalonia since then. She accumulates medals and awards of all kinds on the wall of her room in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona. Winner of the gold medal at the 2023 Special Olympics World Games in Berlin, her story of overcoming has led her to star in the documentary Beyond sport already received the Female Athlete Award from Barcelona City Council. She meets us a few days after participating in a round table at the Macaya Palace of the La Caixa Foundation to talk about her experience as a member of a team made up of people with borderline intelligence or mild intellectual disability.

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"My sport is invisible and we put on a lot of show," says Sara Saldaña after being presented as one of the protagonists in the campaign Your style, your game. The presentation at Roca Village celebrates talent and creativity in fashion, sport and art. "I have always loved the world of creativity and editing," says the artistic swimmer at the ARA. During her childhood, she was passionate about audiovisuals. The appreciation for images and videos has become a characteristic trait that has been preserved in the artist's personality over the years. Since she was little, and with the help of her mother, she has sought a discipline in which she could show her most artistic and aesthetic side. "If I'm not swimming, I'm eating," she says enthusiastically. Now her premise is clear: to show the world who she is through content on the Internet.

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Nowadays we hear a lot about strength training to improve our physical health and to delay aging. But many times, when these words are spoken to us, we are not very clear what they are referring to, nor do we know how to put it into practice.

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