Antonio Rebollo approaches the torchbearer, he tilts his bow so that the tip of the arrow catches fire. The gesture is slow but assured, he concentrates. Angelo Badalamenti’s music resonates. He shoots and, a few seconds and a few meters later, the cauldron lights up. This scene took place in front of a few dozen spectators, on September 3, 2022, on the occasion of the “Festa Major” of Bellaterra, a small town on the outskirts of Barcelona. If Antonio Rebollo still plays and replays this somewhat sad sketch – at medieval fairs, patron saint festivals – it is, he explains to Les Jours, because it provides him with “additional income”. At 69, he still works as a mason and locksmith near Madrid. “Because having done it at the time brought me nothing, except notoriety,” he adds, a little bitterly.
You saw this scene in XXXXXL version if you were in front of your television on July 25, 1992, a little before the end of the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games. And it is quite possible that it left its mark on you. Even today, the arrow that rises in the Catalan night to end its course in the Olympic cauldron that immediately bursts into flames remains a must. But if we mention it as the Paris Olympics open this Friday, it is not because there is doping, cheating, a scam, or even a shameful or immoral idea to break a record or win an event behind it.
2024-07-26 11:58:00
#Barcelona #flaming #arrow #ignited
