The Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) took this Monday the first step to retrace the path of disagreement who had begun to tour the governments of Aragon Y Catalonia last week after failed attempt to meet their presidents in the town of Balaguer, Lleida, last Friday. This ended with the suspension ‘in extremis’ of the Aragonese Javier Lambán, warning his counterpart, Pere Aragonés, that he will not tolerate more “lack of respect” and the other replying that the discrepancies are settled by talking.
Well, the president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco, who kept silent then, this Monday reached out for understanding visiting the Catalan leader in the Generalitat taking advantage of his stay in Barcelona for the awards ceremony of the Mundo Deportivo newspaper. An unexpected visit so as not to blow up the candidacy before heading to Beijing.
The Spanish expedition leaves this week for the chinese appointment, which starts next day 4 and Blanco did not want to leave the situation as he stayed at the end of last week between Aragon and Catalonia and maintained a fleeting encounter with Aragonés to talk about the candidacy for the 2030 Winter Games. Later, the president of the COE also met with the Councilor for the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, with whom he met again after the mysterious and controversial meeting last week, which was not on the official agenda. As then, from the Generalitat they have indicated that “The meeting has been technical.”
That is why the president of the COE, who was actually in Barcelona to attend the Mundo Deportivo gala, he chatted for half an hour with the Catalan president. However, from the Government the meeting between presidents has been valued as “positive”. And, according to sources from the Presidency, during the talk Aragonès raised with Blanco the Catalan commitment to “sustainable Games” and with the “consensus support of the citizenry”.
A fleeting date in Barcelona that serves to keeping the technicians’ work alive, which cannot be stopped despite the differences between institutions, and leave parked the politicians for after the appointment of Beijing 2022 to which the COE now travels together with the Spanish expedition.
Precisely that is what Blanco has also transferred this Monday to the Aragonese president Javier Lambán, to whom, according to official DGA sources, kept informed at all times of his meeting with his Catalan counterpart. Both “that this meeting was going to take place and, later, how it had passed.”
“Lambán and Blanco have agreed to continue working at a technical level on the candidacy for the Olympic Games and to speak again after the Games in Beijing that are held in the coming days,” added the sources from the Aragonese Executive. An institutional truce that is the respite that Lambán himself asked for after the failed meeting in Balaguer and that keeps the (Olympic) flame burning for now
