Barcelona eats, drinks, breathes, lives and dreams sport. More than any other city in Spain, Barcelona is a sporting paradise. Reliable estimates have it that 25 of the population of the Catalan capital city are active participants in at least one sport on a regular basis. It’s also more than probable that those people not participating in sport will either be watching it or talking about it in a bar somewhere.
Barcelona, you see, is totally crazy about sport. It was the 1992 Olympic Games, which spurred a tremendous interest in all sports and began the dramatic improvements in the sporting infrastructure of the city that have led to it becoming one of Europe’s premier venues.
Of course, for many sports lovers Barcelona means, more than anything, Barca – the exciting and exotic team football team (soccer, if you’re an American reader) which has a reputation for playing fast, free flowing attacking games in a stadium with a capacity for 98,000 highly charged spectators. It is no coincidence that the most visited museum in the whole of Catalonia is the museum at FC Barcelona’s Nou Camp Stadium, with a staggering 1,200,000 visitors annually. FC Barcelona, however, is much more than even a football club – it has top rated basketball, handball, and hockey teams, for example. One of the NBA’s star players, Pau Gasol, born locally, once represented the Barcelona basketball team before moving over to the USA and eventually signing for LA Lakers.
Because of its enticing proximity to the mountains and the sea, Barcelona is able to offer participants the best of all worlds. Sailing, windsurfing, kitesurfing and kayaking are all popular and found on the beaches in and around the city, especially focussed around the Centre Municipal de Vela at Port Olimpic. In addition, you’re never very far away from the climbing, hiking or skiing in the nearby Pyrenees.
Motor sport lovers are wonderfully catered for at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo, just 12 miles or 20 kilometres north of the city centre. Not only are the Spanish Formula 1 and the Catalan Moto GPs held here annually but there is a whole calendar of events throughout the year that attracts thousands of visitors.
For golfers, there are courses in and around the city to rival, and perhaps even surpass, those on the better known golf area of the Costa del Sol. For instance, you can play at the Greg Norman designed 45 holes of the Real Club de Golf el Prat at Terrassa or the Masia Bach Golf Club with its course designed by Jose Maria Olazabal, and many, many more.
If you’re very fortunate, whilst you’re in Barcelona you might catch some glimpses of a terrifying local sport – human castles – which are pyramids of people often 9 storeys high with a young climber at the summit waving to the crowds below. The famous Castellers de Vilafranca are the acknowledged masters of this, literally, death defying sport and there are often festivals in the summer where you might be able to witness their activities at first hand.
Barcelona is a city which will always offer visitors a unique experience; a place of great tradition, yet bursting with life and exuberance. And these aspects are fully reflected in the Catalan love of sport.
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