For more than 10 minutes, Oriol Cardona and Ana Alonso didn't know where to hide. They were so exhausted they could barely speak after the demanding Olympic ski mountaineering relay final, in which they had finished third. But the competition judges had penalized one of Alonso's ski changes, a penalty that, in theory, deducted three seconds from their time. If that was the case, they would win the bronze. But there was no official confirmation of a possible appeal from the Americans, who had finished fourth. Or the possibility that the penalty would be for more seconds and leave them off the podium. "Three seconds, it says three seconds!" Alonso shouted when she saw the confirmation on the scoreboard that they had won the bronze. And Oriol Cardona began to cry with emotion. He had made an incredible effort to win his second Olympic medal in three days.

Today marks one month since the Gelida accident in which a trainee train driver died, which definitively plunged Cercanías into chaos, courtesy of Renfe, Adif and the Ministry of Transport (and which, by the way, significantly affected the AP-7).

Security personnel at the Bormio ski resort, where the final of the ski mountaineering sprint race was held, ordered the removal of the Estelada flags and some Catalan flags carried by Catalan fans, many of them friends and acquaintances of Oriol Cardona, who has won the gold medal, and Ot Ferrer. The explanation given by security personnel is that they are required to enforce the Olympic Charter, which prohibits "any type of political, religious, or racial demonstration or propaganda in any venue or facility considered part of the Olympic Games." At these same Games, an athlete, the Ukrainian Vladislav Heraskevich, from skeletonHe was expelled because he was competing with a helmet that displayed the faces of athletes killed by the Russian army.

Oriol Cardona from Banyoles lived up to expectations and won the gold medal in the ski mountaineering sprint, a discipline making its Olympic debut. Oriol had known for months that everyone had high hopes for him. So much so that one of his first reactions after his victory was a feeling of liberation. "It's hard to know what to say, I've worked so hard for this medal. I was eager to get this final out of the way, which luckily went very well. When I arrived and knew I was champion... it's incredible," he said. Cardona, a world champion with a formidable track record, won the first Catalan medal at these Games just minutes after Ana Alonso from Andalusia took bronze in the women's category. Cardona and Alonso will be looking for a second medal on Saturday in the pairs event.

Next Friday, no one will call any goal at Milan's Giuseppe Meazza stadium. For once, San Siro will forget about football as it is the stage for... The opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, an event that will take place from February 6 to 22 in the Italian Alps and the Lombard capital, with the Cortina d'Ampezo resort as the central venue for many ski events.