Welcome to this act to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Barcelona 92 Olympic and Paralympic Games. A historic event that was both a sports and civic landmark in the city and the country’s history.

A success we all contributed to and is now part of our collective memory

Shared memory of the past creates identity and a feeling of belonging, an awareness of having lived through a historical period and faced extraordinary challenges, all of us, together.

Our beloved city has experienced everything, but there’s no doubt that one of the happiest and most inspiring memories we share is organising the 1992 Olympic Games.

Let me recall the background once more: In 1986, our city’s nomination as Olympic host city meant choosing a Mediterranean city that is not the state capital, but which historically had a yearning for the Olympics.

A city that had only recovered democracy just a few years before and still suffered from the wounds caused by dictatorship and industrialisation, carried out without any guarantee of basic rights.

It was in that difficult context of the 1980s that Barcelona decided to take a step forward and reclaim its capacity to organise some Olympic Games.

A project as ambitious as it was thrilling. A project which meant Barcelona had an enormous task ahead of it, and a unique opportunity.

And the result dazzled the world.

On 25 July 1992, Barcelona said “hola” and millions of people around the world discovered our city, our country and our Mediterranean character. We took centre stage and delighted everyone with an unbeatable event.  

The Games were an example of excellence and success, such as we have rarely seen in the history of the Olympics. And this success was on three levels: first, they were extraordinary in their organisation and execution, a model based on collaboration between the public administration and the private sector, under clear, firm public leadership. Second, they were extraordinary from a sports point of view, an unprecedented boost to sport in our country. And third, they were extraordinary from the perspective of transforming our city. The Games also served to dignify the outskirts of the city, to knit the city fabric together, to open it up to the sea, and to position it in the world.

In short, they revealed a leading city to everyone, one that knows how to do things well, one convinced it could and deserved to play in the global city premier league.

And we can say, without being presumptuous, that there was a before and an after the Barcelona Games, for Barcelona and for the Games themselves.

I would therefore like to thank Narcís Serra, the city’s first mayor in the democratic era and the bold promoter of its bid.

And, needless to say, Pasqual Maragall, the mayor who made the Games possible and who we have to thank for their success. A visionary capable of building a great team round him and who led the entire project. From here I would like to convey to him my infinite gratitude and recognition.

Likewise, on behalf of the city, I would like to offer my thanks to all those people, from very different fields, some of whom are here, who made it all possible.

I would also like to take the opportunity to highlight the extraordinary effort of some anonymous yet essential protagonists: the volunteers.

You symbolise better than anyone the enormous popular enthusiasm and outburst of collective excitement which accompanied that event, the like of which we had never seen. And we showed that, when we achieve this, we are unstoppable.

Nothing would have been impossible without you. You were admirable examples of the Olympic spirit, the “friends forever” of Barcelona. Once again, to all of you, thank you very, very much.

I would also like to recall how in 1992 Barcelona led the wave of solidarity towards the besieged city of Sarajevo and that today, in different but equally tragic circumstances, Barcelona is once again promoting solidarity in response to the tragedy in Ukraine.

Vindication with an eye to the future

Thirty years on it is still a pleasure to recall that time.  But a lot of things have changed since then.

The Barcelona of today is not that of the 1980s, nor is the world. Today we face inescapable challenges, and we must know how to move ahead of the times as we did then.

We have the challenge of building a fairer city, after a serious economic crisis and a health one, the challenge of tackling the climate emergency and building a more sustainable city, and we have the challenge of promoting a competitive economy for the 21st century. that is diversified and innovative, and relaunches us as a leading city.

Faced with these challenges, there is a danger we may get carried away with nostalgia, by idealistic memories of the past that paralyse us and lead us to do more of the same, without changing a thing.

That is not how Barcelona faced the Olympic Games, nor how we will conquer the future.

We need to reclaim the dream of reviving the city and giving it a new impetus by thinking about what we want to be: A city with less pollution and more greenery, a city with less inequality and more opportunities, a city with less speculation and more technology, a city less of the past and more of the future.

It is this city of the future that is demonstrating an extraordinary capacity to attract others.

Four top international events have chosen Barcelona in the last year and a half, despite the difficult situation we have faced: Integrated Systems Europe, the most important audiovisual conference in the world; the World Capital of Architecture; Manifesta, the Contemporary Art Biennial, and the America’s Cup.

In addition to those events, just yesterday Barcelona was recognised as the permanent host city of the Mobile World Congress. How many other cities could boast that?

The 19992 Games were the necessary lever for making the city’s transformation possible. Today the opposite is true: the transformation the city has undergone has facilitated holding these events. And that is a symbol of maturity and success.

To sum up, Barcelona today is a city with personality and its own project that enjoys a power of attraction it has not had for some time.

And it attracts according to whether the projects fit in with its model and contribute to the city we want. A city that can choose and knows how to choose in line with what it wants to be and what it wants to do.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Olympic Games is a magnificent opportunity for us to recover that spirit of commitment and cooperation and to project it forcefully towards the future, at the service of a city that is coming out of the crisis stronger, looking back with pride and to the future with enthusiasm and ambition.

Happy anniversary everyone!