The spirit of Barcelona 92 never dies. It is always special when the notes of the songs that people learned by heart that very special summer are played. Notes that have sounded again at the tribute and remembrance event for Joan Antoni Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee who, a few years earlier, in 1986, uttered those words “A la ville... de Barcelona”.“A la ville... de Barcelona”. The name of his native city. 16 years after the death of the Barcelonian who achieved the greatest international sporting success, an event was held at the Palauet Albéniz that brought together many of the faces who, together with Samaranch, made Barcelona Olympic. It was a day of reunions and greetings among those who wanted to vindicate a figure who was capable of modernizing the Olympic movement and, by extension, the Catalan capital.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has elected a new president, and for the first time, it will be a woman: Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe. The former swimmer will be the tenth president in a list that began with Greek Dimitrios Vikelas in 1894 after surprisingly winning an absolute majority in the first round of voting, ahead of names such as Britain's Sebastian Coe and Catalonia's Joan Antoni Samaranch. The Barcelona-born leader will no longer be able to emulate his father, president from 1980 to 2001, as he is too old to stand in the next election.