Oriol Cardona and Ana Alonso win the bronze medal in the relay race

BarcelonaOriol Cardona has become one of the names of these Winter Games. After winning the gold medal in the men's ski mountaineering sprint eventCardona, from Banyoles, has added a second medal, the bronze in the mixed relay, partnering with Ana Alonso from Granada, who also adds a second medal to the bronze she won on Thursday. Cardona flew through the last of the four legs and once again demonstrated his competitive spirit. He also brought joy to Alonso, who finished her last leg very tired and worried, having made a mistake in a transition that resulted in a three-second penalty. But Cardona, who also ended up exhausted on the snow after his performance, was able to give the Granadan skier a boost. Alonso is the protagonist of an incredible story of overcoming adversity, as last September she was hit by a car while training on her bicycle in Sierra Nevada and suffered injuries that jeopardized her participation in the Games. The pairs final was between the twelve highest-ranked teams in the World Cup.

The French pair Thibault Anselmet and Emily Harrop won gold with a commanding lead. Jon Kistler and Marianne Fatton of Switzerland took silver in a relay race, a different event from the individual competition, which features a sprint format with a short, explosive course. In the relay, participants complete two laps of a 1,500-meter course with a 150-meter elevation gain. The women run one lap, then the men, the third lap is for the women again, and the final lap is for the men. As always, transitions are crucial: those moments when you take off your skis to walk up and down sections of stairs, put your skis back on, and then put on and take off the climbing skins that allow for smoother ascents. If these transitions are made outside of designated areas or the rules are not followed, you can be penalized, as happened to Alonso.

The Andalusian skier was in third place on the first lap, but when it came time to transition and put on the climbing skins, she lost too much time and passed the baton to Cardona in fifth position, while France pulled away in the lead and Switzerland advanced. The Catalan skier, with his aggressive style on the uphill sections, managed to finish third at the halfway point of the final. On the third lap, the Swiss skier Fatton consolidated her second position, pulling away from Alonso, who saw the Italian Alba de Silvestro and the American Anna Gibson closing in, and handed over the final leg in fourth place. Cardona, therefore, had to give it her all to secure the bronze, as Anselmet and Kistler were too far ahead, battling for the gold. And the man from Banyoles didn't falter, putting in an incredible final surge that saw him overtake the Americans and Italians, despite the pressure of a three-second penalty for a mistake by Alonso during a transition. Nevertheless, Cardona held firm and secured his second medal at the Games.

At 31, Cardona has secured his place in Catalan sporting history with these two medals in a discipline with a long tradition in Catalonia, but one that only made its Olympic debut at these Games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. With these two medals, Oriol Cardona becomes the Catalan-born athlete with the most Winter Olympic medals (previously only Queralt Castellet had won a silver in the half-pipe), surpassed only by the seven medals (six gold) won by Martin Fourcade, also from northern Catalonia, in biathlon. Interestingly, in these 2026 Games... Fourcade has received the sixth gold medal of his career, although he has been retired for years. In recent months, the positive doping test of Russian Yevgeny Ustyugov at the 2014 Vancouver Games, where the skier from Ceret won the silver medal, has been confirmed. The IOC wanted to award medals, with a ceremony including the national anthem, to all those athletes who benefited from the sanctions imposed on Russian athletes who had tested positive.