2023-10-05 07:15:40
Girona Since the end of summer every Wednesday there has been a lot of buzz at the gates of the Girona sports hall in Fontajau. It’s not because a special game is being played inside. It is the meeting place for dozens of women who come together to train folds. It is a tradition that repeats itself year after year from August to the beginning of October. They all share one goal: to run or walk the 5 kilometers of the Girona Women’s Race, which takes place this Sunday, October 8. An event that started symbolically to promote sport in women and that ten years later has exceeded all expectations and has become the most participatory race in the city.
Tania Sánchez started going to training in 2017. Then she was 36 years old and didn’t do any sports. “My life was children, home and work…”, he points out. In training, with a lot of effort and the help of the trainers which accompany the participants free of charge, began a trucker until you last 5 km. “Then it all started: I went from running 5 kilometers to 10, then a half marathon and a marathon. I am very happy”, she says.
“A before and an after”
Its history condenses the transformation that women’s sport has experienced in Girona thanks to this test. For Anna Oliveras, who is one of the trainers volunteers, has meant “a before and an after”. “For me it is a very grateful experience because, in exchange for teaching how to run and helping to do sport, I have changed the lives of many women – she points out -. To the point that, some, from leaving the house and socializing, have seen that they were not so well, they have felt freer and have made a change in life”. The last training took place this Wednesday, with a surprise change of location at the last minute: already on the Cup esplanade, in La Devesa, where the race ends. To warm up the engines of a race that this year has the motto of “We have grown together”.
The race was born in 2013 by Esports Parra and Girona City Council. From the sports shop, they felt that something needed to be done to promote women’s sports in the city. They had been organizing a mixed 10 km race for years, but then there were only 15% registered. They now represent 41% in this type of format. The peak came before the pandemic, with a record 7,500 registered. This year they will try to match it, but Patrícia Parra, daughter of the founders of the sports store and organizer of the race, admits that it is now costing more. However, it also coincides at a time when there is a lot of sports on offer – this weekend the Oncotrail is also celebrated, with the majority of female teams present – and when more women have embraced other sports instead of taking up new ones habits
But beyond its sporting function, the Girona Women’s Race has become an annual meeting place. Participating in it does not involve running, but can also be done by walking. This makes it an intergenerational space as well. “We all meet: daughters, aunts, cousins, friends…”, points out Tania.
Taking this situation into account, the novelty of this year’s edition is a free reception service for children aged 3 to 12 with prior registration, offered by Girona City Council and which will be located in the area of arrival of the Cup. It will be close to where all the participants will dance to the official anthem of the race, devised by Sílvia Wang, who also prepares virtual training in the weeks before the sporting event.
Five generations folded
But for those who don’t want to leave their children, the organization also encourages them to take them on the tour. There is a prize for the oldest and also the youngest participant. Two awards that were won by the same family in the last edition. Maria Latorre, 104 years old, was the oldest. She was accompanied by her granddaughter, Laia, who was only six days old. In total, five generations of the Voz de Girona family: great-grandmother, great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and the little girl. “Just 10 years ago my father died. He was the son of Maria Latorre and taking her to the race a few years later, with her wheelchair, encouraged her”, explains Imma Voz. The tradition ran deep in the family, to the point that the little girl’s mother wondered years ago if she would be able to run the race with her great-grandmother when she had a daughter. And so it could be last year. Both of them went there in a wheelchair, because Laia’s mother had had a complicated birth, and this left an image for the family to remember. Latorre died last February and this year they will pay tribute to him.
“It will be strange, but doing the race again will also be a way to think about it and keep it in mind”, points out Imma Voz, who appreciates that the race has become an “impulse in life and especially in the women”. The meeting is intergenerational, but Anna Oliveras points out that they still lack the generation between the ages of 20 and 30; they find that many girls start running then, at 30. However, Oliveras points out that “women, in terms of sport, have changed by 80%”. to a race and sometimes won. Now it’s impossible. There has been an unstoppable transformation.”
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