The Olympic discipline that could change the history of Catalan sport

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

These Games arrive with some unease, as the construction of many ice rinks in Milan has been rushed, and the current political tensions with the United States government haven't helped matters. sending agents from the controversial ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ServiceItaly, fielding a delegation aiming to win more medals than ever before, promises a modern Games with the debut of new disciplines. This has changed the lives of several Catalan athletes.

Eleven Catalans

Never before have the Winter Olympics seen a delegation with so many Catalans. Of the 20 members of the national team, eleven are Catalan, surpassing the eight Catalans who competed in the Vancouver Games in 2010. Leading the way will be the ever-present Queralt Castellet. The Sabadell native will become the first Catalan to participate in six different Olympic Games, and she does so in top form. hopeful to repeat the medal in halfpipe four years ago. The silver of the snowboarder The medal won by a Catalan athlete in the 2022 Winter Olympics remains the only one won by a Catalan athlete. Also in snowboardNora Cornell from Girona makes her debut in the discipline of big air and slopestyle.

In cross-country skiing, three Catalans: one Jaume Pueyo, who aspires to an Olympic diploma and the youngsters Bernat Sellés and Marc Colell. The three cross-country runners will participate in various events, such as the classic sprint and the 10 km. He is also participating again in alpine skiing. Quim Salarich, who will be one of the two flag bearers for the delegationThe other representative will be British skater Olivia Smart, who lives in Barcelona and will team up with German Tim Dieck, both of whom are Spanish citizens. They will compete in figure skating, a sport in which Barcelona native Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino will also participate. One of the new additions is the debut of Nil Llop. For the first time, a Catalan will be at the Games in speed skating. There are no tracks for this discipline in Spain, so he competes abroad for half the year.

A world power

But the real hope for medals lies in ski mountaineering. This discipline is making its Olympic debut. Ski mountaineering, as it's also known, involves ascending a mountain on skis in three sections. First, skiing; then, walking with skis on your back; and finally, skiing again. Once at the summit, it's a rapid descent in sprint races that last about three minutes. And the Catalans excel in this discipline, which requires a great deal of effort to climb hills on skis. "We're Catalans, we like to make things difficult. If Catalans are told something can't be done, we do it. We decide where we go and how we do it, that's why we like to climb on skis," jokes Ot Ferrer, one of the representatives at the Games. Three of the four skiers on the Spanish team are Catalan. Oriol Cardona is one of the favorites after recently winning gold at the World Cup. This past weekend, he finished second in the World Cup event held in Boí Taüll, just behind Frenchman Thibault Anselmet in the sprint race. The ski mountaineering team is completed by Ferrer and Maria Costa, as well as Ana Alonso from Andalusia, with whom Cardona won silver last Sunday in the relay event.

Cardona, from Banyoles, a two-time world and European champion, admits that never having been to the Games is an advantage. "The uncertainty of what we'll feel or experience... I'm managing it as best I can, without overthinking it. I've never been to the Games, I don't know what I'll feel. That uncertainty can be the key to racing without pressure and achieving good results. All four members of the team have medal potential. We're a very strong team." At 31, he remembers the moment years ago when they were told that ski mountaineering would finally be an Olympic sport. "Our hearts leapt." Cardona will compete in the sprint and the mixed relay, partnering with Alonso from Granada, who recovered in time from a serious knee injury she suffered in October when she was hit by a car while training on her bicycle. Together they won silver at the last world championships.

Maria Costa, from Santpedor, will participate in the women's event: "I'm really looking forward to making my debut at the Olympic Games, enjoying the experience, and giving it my all. I'm not setting any limits for myself. I'm going there to enjoy myself and compete." Costa and Ot Ferrer are 23 years old and are part of a group that already shone at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, when ski mountaineering was added to the program. "Maria and I joined the team when we were 16 or 17. This is the reward for our entire career and for the team that trained us. It's a unique opportunity. It's normal that there's more talk about Oriol and Ana; perhaps that takes some pressure off us," says the athlete from Berguedà.

Theskimo It's a sport deeply rooted in our region. "The conditions of our mountains and the climate allow us to practice it more than in other places," says Ferrer. In fact, some say that this sport may have originated in Catalonia. "There's a certain historical debate, as some people say that the first ski mountaineering race in the world was a race in the 1920s in La Molina, which climbed to the Tossa d'Alp. So, this has a long history, and there have always been very good people in the competitions, competing head-to-head with Italian skiers—and I mean Italian skiers—and I mean Italian skiers—from the Ski Mountaineering Training Center, created by Jordi Canals in 1998, which has trained great champions like Pinsach and Kilian Jornet himself, who practiced this discipline during a time when he was world champion.

In the Bormio resort, in a few days, not only will the dream of the three skiers who will be there come true, but it will also be a reward for the work of people like Canals, Pinsach, and Jornet. A deeply rooted sport that is finally Olympic."