Key hours for the Pyrenees’ Olympic candidacy after the Aragonese government’s script
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BarcelonaIt was supposed to be the day of family photography to formalize the candidacy to bring the 2030 Winter Olympics to the Pyrenees, but the meeting scheduled for this April 1 in Madrid is still pending to know what the president of the Aragon, Javier Lambán, who refused to sign the agreement that his government delegates approved a few days ago. The government of the Generalitat plans to send Interior Minister Laura Vilagrà to tomorrow’s meeting in Madrid with the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), Alejandro Blanco, while Pere Aragonès asks Lambán to keep his word and not break an agreement that “has taken months to close,” according to technical commission sources. The government of the Generalitat, which is holding an open line of talks with the COE, will take advantage of tomorrow’s meeting in Madrid to ask Blanco where the candidacy should go if Lambán continues without joining.
May Peus, president of the Spanish Winter Sports Federation, who was present at last week’s meeting – in which the proposal to distribute the headquarters was finally agreed – admitted in statements to Cadena SER: “I’m baffled, because an agreement had been reached with which all parties were satisfied.” Lambán accused the delegates of the government of Catalonia of getting up from the table during the meeting on Tuesday, March 22, but on Friday 25 both ERC and Junts ended up validating the proposed distribution of seats proposed a few days before, which the Aragonese considered it valid. “Now we will not move from this proposal,” they tell the Generalitat. President Pere Aragonès has made it clear that “it is a proposal that will allow everyone to play a leading role”, and reiterates that Catalonia no longer intends to modify the proposal for headquarters. This Olympic project was born in Catalonia in 2010, but once it was communicated to the Spanish Olympic Committee, from Madrid it was asked to include tests in Aragon. And if initially everything was good words of Javier Lambán, the situation has become tense once the Aragonese have demanded “a balanced proposal, distributed 50% between Catalonia and Aragon”. Lambán is accused by the Generalitat de Catalunya of dynamiting the project only for its electoral interests: for the profit it derives from projecting an image of opposition in Catalonia.
This week Lambán surprised everyone by refusing to sign the letter that the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), Alejandro Blanco, sent on Monday to the governments of Catalonia and Aragon and the central government and where it was explained what it would be the distribution of meeting venues. In fact, Lambán has accused the COE of favoring Catalonia. He states that he will not go to the meeting on Friday and that he will make a new proposal for the distribution of seats, as this “is not balanced” if the “sporting scope” of the modalities is analyzed, but “clearly favors Catalonia”. The COE document proposes that the most prestigious alpine skiing events in La Molina-Masella be organized in the Catalan Pyrenees, as well as snowboarding and acrobatic skiing in Baqueira Beret, and mountain skiing in La Molina-Masella. Boí Taüll. In addition, the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona and a second facility in the city, probably the future Palau de Gel of Barça, would be the scene of ice hockey. In the Aragonese Pyrenees, biathlon and cross-country skiing would take place at the Candanchú resort, with Zaragoza as the venue for figure skating and speed skating on the long and short track, while Jaca would host curling. The distribution of ice sports was one of the points on which the Catalan and Aragonese delegations did not agree, as initially the idea was for all the ice to be on the same stage. Finally, it was agreed to split it and leave only ice hockey in Catalonia, as this sport, according to IOC regulations, requires a pavilion with a capacity that none of the pavilions in Zaragoza have. Barcelona, on the other hand, does: the Palau Sant Jordi. If COE sources admit that during the last few months at many times the big obstacle was to get the political parties of the government of Catalonia to agree, once this stage has been overcome they have run into a bigger problem, the position of the Aragonese, who would have decided to reject the agreement they considered valid a week ago in part because it was leaked to the press.
The president of Aragon also demanded on Monday to know where the opening and closing ceremony would take place, as well as the official name of the project. At the meetings of the technical committee there had been talk of postponing the decision of the official name until the end of everything, as it is also a complicated point. The International Olympic Committee is interested in the Barcelona brand, to connect a possible date of the year 2030 with the memory of the 1992 Games, but Lambán says that if the name of Barcelona or Catalonia appears, there are also d ‘appear that of Zaragoza or that of Aragon. “From Barcelona they talk about the Barcelona-Pyrenees candidacy”, complained Lambán, who wants the three valleys of the Aragonese Pyrenees, Formigal, Benasque and Candanchú to have tests. Now there is only one in Candanchú.
There have been calls from all parties in recent days, but the central government of Pedro Sanchez has not pressured Lambán, because he does not want to tighten the rope with one of the few regional presidents of the Socialist Party.
