For many years, Catalan figure skaters were invisible to the institutions. Year after year, they achieved all-Catalan international podium finishes and placed figure skating among the world's elite. However, the response from the Generalitat (Catalan government) was silence. As if the demands of this discipline were not comparable to those of other sports. But last week, After much insistence and years of advocacy, There has been a significant step forward that begins to acknowledge a long-standing and undeniable reality. The Extraordinary Commission for the Evaluation of High Performance in Catalonia, at the request of the Department of Sports, approved criteria that will allow the Catalan Skating Federation to submit applications from athletes in the show skating discipline within the Catalan high-performance system. "It's very good news, and we're really happy," explains Julia Casadevall, captain of CPA Olot. "We believe it's a very important step. A first step in recognizing all the years of effort and international achievements."

Sixteen world championship golds should be enough to receive some institutional recognition. But in figure skating, this isn't the case. CPA Olot is the most decorated club in this discipline internationally, and despite the fact that its skaters dedicate their lives to the sport, they are still not considered high-performance athletes. Júlia Casadevall, vice-captain of CPA Olot's Grand Show team, is a clear example of this reality. She has been skating at the club since she was five years old. She joined because a friend told her she had to try the sport, and taking her advice changed her life: "Thanks to her, I've learned the values ​​that skating provides and the gratification of being a world champion," she says. After two seasons in the Olot club's Junior Show, her career has solidified in the Grand Show, where this year marks her eighth season. Her record is indisputable: four world championship golds and two silvers in the last six seasons. Results that, in any other sport, would be synonymous with elite.

The life of Tomás-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté (Sabadell, 1999) changed when he was three years old. Watching television, he discovered figure skating on ice, seeing the Salt Lake City Games, with the brilliant performance of the Russian Aleksei Yagudin. "I told my mother I liked it, that's it," he recalls. Tomás didn't stop until he was taken to a rink in his hometown, where he began roller skating. And when he discovered that Barcelona had two ice rinks, he asked to go and joined the now-defunct FC Barcelona skating section. Thus began a routine that combined figure skating on rollers with ice skating at the now-closed Skating Club rink on Roger de Flor Street and the FC Barcelona ice rink, until at age 13, the young man from Sabadell decided he would go all out to become an Olympic ice skater. "It's more fun, faster, and flows better than on wheels," he says. And this Tuesday, he made his Olympic debut. A dream come true.

Laia Bové (Barcelona, ​​1985) is a person who goes with the flow. Accustomed to a life between Barcelona and the United States (she settled in Florida years ago), she is always open to new experiences. She has been a professional ice skater, a yoga teacher, and now she makes the leap to literature with *Saber volver* (La Campana), a novel about two characters—a young Catalan woman living in Chicago and a young man who has had to return home to his parents due to an injury—who are searching for their place in the world. We meet in a bar, and shortly before we begin talking, the bartender, looking at her Afro hair, says, "Wow, what a mane." She smiles with the resignation of someone who has had to hear a comment like that too many times and replies kindly, "Well, yes, I don't need to do much to it."

She had the season planned out, but a leak turned everything upside down. Marina Tomàs, a skater in the dance and small show categories at the Figueres Artistic Skating Club, was injured at the beginning of this season during official training for the first championship. solo dance"There was a leak in the pavilion and I slipped. My first thought was: get up, the training minutes are ticking by and you don't have time to waste. But when I tried and saw that my foot wasn't responding, I realized the situation was serious and I wouldn't be able to compete that day." I went into shock.