The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, led a ceremony at the Somorrostro beach today to twin the two major sports events that Barcelona will have the honour of hosting: La Vuelta, which gets under way tomorrow, and the America’s Cup, which takes place next year. Participants in the ceremony included the director general of La Vuelta 2023, Javier Guillén, the CEO of the America’s Cup, Grant Dalton, and the Councillor for Sport, David Escudé.

The Mayor, Jaume Collboni, recalled the historical past of the location chosen for the start of La Vuelta, and all its symbolism: “This beach was home to a shanty town, the neighbourhood of Somorrostro, where 15,000 people lived in precarious conditions and aspired to live better. Now it’s an open and accessible space for everybody, expressing the city’s progress and desire to improve the quality of life of its people.”

Collboni affirmed that “major international sports events help improve the city and the quality of life in the city. They leave us a positive and constructive legacy of international projection. They leave us a legacy of the transmission of the values of sport, fair play, effort, and they leave us very important revenue for Barcelona’s local economy”.

In addition, through this twinning, “we unite cycling and sailing, we unite Europe and Oceania, through a very simple, affordable and democratic form of sport such as cycling, and a form or sport such as the America’s Cup, strongly based on innovation, research and technology, a very interesting combination and very much in keeping with Barcelona, tradition and innovation. And once again, we unite sport and the city”.

For his part, Javier Guillén lauded the connection between La Vuelta and the America’s Cup, produced by the fact they share Barcelona as the host venue: “We feel strongly identified with the America’s Cup. Firstly for internationalisation. We want to be windows through which we can reach out to the rest of the world. Secondly as we want to project sustainability, the physical elements of movement in cycling are natural, legs, as are the elements of movement for the boats in the America’s Cup, which are propelled by sails. There’s a third element that unites us, the stage. We can choose different stages. And here we’ve found the most incredible starting point we’ve ever used, with the Mediterranean as our host and promoting a typical element, the Pati Catalan”.

Finally, Grant Dalton noted that in New Zealand the three biggest sports are rugby, sailing and cycling, and that many sportspeople from the America’s Cup are actually also cyclists and will be following La Vuelta from tomorrow. Dalton also praised the stage chosen for the start of La Vuelta and the connection between the two events, as well as the transformation of the area around this beach, referring to the historical observation from the Mayor.