"Sport does not serve to stop wars, but it does serve to improve the lives of many people"

BarcelonaThe Saló de Cent at Barcelona City Hall seemed small on Monday afternoon, packed to the rafters with a crowd that wanted to greet Pere Miró i Sellarés (Manresa, 1955). He is one of those people who can walk down the street calmly, without being recognized by many passersby who do not know that standing before them is one of the Catalans who has reached the furthest internationally. Those who know him highlight the same thing: he will not pin medals on himself in public, he will not exaggerate what he did. A modest and hardworking man. That is why it is fitting that others pin the medals on him, as Jaume Collboni did when presenting him with the city's gold medal for sporting merit. Miró's career path deserves it.

Pere Miró ended up holding positions of great responsibility within the International Olympic Committee (IOC), where he has worked for more than thirty years. He was the IOC technical director, director of Olympic Solidarity, director of Relations with national Olympic committees, and, finally, deputy director general of the organization, as well as special advisor to president Thomas Bach. "My president," as Miró says of the German, who was present in the front row. Bach did not want to miss it, as he knew it was a special moment for Miró, who was also chosen in his time as a favorite son of Manresa. "When we had problems at the IOC due to world geopolitics, we would call Pere. A great diplomat who has traveled all over the world negotiating," Bach explained in his speech. "And a man always proud of his identity and language, Catalan," he added, speaking of a good friend with whom he jokes about football: "I am from Bayern and he is from Barça. I celebrate that Flick now unites us." Pere is a 'blaugrana', but when it comes to basketball, everything changes. His heart belongs to Bàsquet Manresa, of course. A universal Catalan who does not forget his roots and played a key role in the negotiations to create agreements in Bosnia after the war, when he sat at the same table as three opposing sides that could not even look at each other. Achieving agreements.

How does a man from Manresa end up at the same table as representatives of warring factions using sports diplomacy? "I always say that I am a person who has not had bad luck," he says. He emphasizes the absence of bad luck, rather than talking about good luck. You have to be in the right place and know the key people. And in his case, it all begins when he was a "slightly chubby" boy. "It was July 20, 1968, a summer day at the pool, bored as an oyster. And I saw the swimmers and I decided to go ask about swimming. There was Josep Claret, a key figure in local swimming. And a chubby boy who didn't know how to swim well arrived to see him... He could have sent me away, but he suggested I try water polo. Even today, I celebrate every July 20th," he explains. That day, everything changed.

That boy who started practicing water polo at the same pool where Manel Estiarte, present at the event, would do so, was already captain of the children's team in less than two years. "In sports, you discover that you have to work hard, you have to know your virtues and flaws. And the power of teamwork," explains the leader, who was surrounded by the players from that team. Years and years have passed and they are still in contact. "I like to build teams," admits Miró. Everywhere he has been, he has brought people together. That is why when he receives an homage, everyone wants to be there. Sports had already entered his life and never left it. He went to study at INEF in Madrid, since back then if you wanted to study sports, you had to go there. "Before, sports depended on the Movimiento, it was the José Antonio center in Madrid. It was Samaranch who pushed to separate sports from the Movimiento schools, and made them independent, something few remember now," he explains. Francoist sports were modernizing and when INEF opened a branch in Barcelona, Pere would join as a professor.

And at 24 years old, when the Dictator dies, he is offered the position of director of the center. "The students were younger than me," he recalls of a time when "everything was yet to be done and everything was possible." Democracy was arriving and since President Jordi Pujol was told about a man from Manresa who knew how to do things well, he ended up on the Convergència i Unió lists for the Barcelona City Council, and he was elected councilor in 1987. Once again, Miró was in the ideal place at the right time, since it was necessary to organize the 1992 Games. "I remember organizing the INEF students the day that President Samaranch said that Barcelona would be the host city. And being clear that that moment would change the city, our lives and that I wanted to be there." And yes, he was there.

As a city councilor and member of the management team for the 1992 Olympic Games, he witnessed the urban, social, and sporting transformation of Barcelona up close. "There is nothing like the Games. It affects everyone. You talk to neighbors, doctors, builders, athletes, associations... It changed everything. Barcelona took it on as a collective project. And when society has a collective project, it is very beautiful," he explains. Joan Antoni Samaranch, the president of the IOC, followed the preparation of the Games in his home city closely. He didn't want to look bad. And he quickly understood that Miró was one of those who worked well, so he took him to Lausanne once "the best Games of 1992, the ones that are still studied as a model," finished, argues Miró. And he has not returned, because he lives in Switzerland, although he spends his summers in Begur.

The Bosnian challenge

At the IOC, one of the first complicated tasks he received was to go to Sarajevo to bring together the three warring factions: the Bosnian Muslim, the Croat, and the Serb. "The first time they agreed was to form the Olympic Committee. In 2000, at the Sydney Games parade, a member from each community carried the flag," he recalls emotionally. He participated in those negotiations and had to visit the city of Sarajevo more than thirty times. "I have spent my life on a plane. I have traveled too much," he admits. He has been sent to negotiate in Iraq or East Timor. He has met all kinds of leaders. And he has understood that "sport cannot stop wars. "If two sides want to fight, we cannot do anything about it. But we can help change lives. A few years ago, we could carry out joint projects between Israelis and Palestinians, now it is difficult," he admits. "His common sense makes him a great diplomat, ideal for negotiating," Bach explained about Miró.

In a world where innocents always die, one of the projects he is most proud of is the creation of the refugee team. "Thomas Bach proposed it to me. I visited the second largest war refugee camp on the planet, in Kenya, with people fleeing South Sudan. We have two types of refugees: young people escaping war with the potential to compete and already established athletes fleeing war. In the Kenya camp, we offered a new future to young Sudanese with brilliant conditions for athletics who were able to go to the London Games. At the same time, in the refugee camps in Greece, we found the Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini, who was fleeing the war. I still talk to her a lot," says a man who holds a special memory for Josep Lluís Vilaseca, vice president of the 1992 Games organizing committee, Joan Antoni Samaranch, and Thomas Bach. The three men who trusted him at key moments.

Miró has set foot in 167 different countries. In Europe, all except Estonia. At Monday's event, journalist Jordi Basté joked that he should now go on vacation to Estonia with Núria, on a trip, finally, for pleasure. No work. "I think I prefer to travel little, now," says Pere, who wants to learn to play the piano and continue studying languages. And preparing some much-needed memoirs, in which he will be able to explain from within the diplomacy of sport. The one that led a man from Manresa, who as a child didn't even know he wanted to be an athlete, to meet the best world champions and the most powerful men on the planet.