ENG: The 30th Anniversary of the Cursa Popular

Today, the Cursa Popular of Vilanova i la Geltrú celebrated its 30th anniversary, which means that it dates back to the first democratically elected municipal assembly, after the era of Franco dictatorship. With the slogan “a la cursa hi participem tots” (let’s all participate in the race), it attempts to reach out to the whole town. I have not yet found any confirmation whether the organisers, the Club Esportiu de Vilanova i la Geltrú reached their target of 3.000 participants, but personally I was positively surprised by the number of acquaintances we met.



This year, the race was split into three levels. The first was the cursa solidària, only 800 meters long so that everybody who wanted could take part. The second one was the cursa infantil for children and their parents and the third one was the main race. Most of the money collected through the participant’s fee of € 2 per person will go to a charity project called “Sport Aid” in Guinea and Guatemala, and to the campaign “one child, one ball” ("un infant, una pilota") aimed at the children of low-income households here locally.

Autumn is here and yesterday it was raining quite a bit, but today we only had a cloudy sky and thus perfect running conditions. After a minor personal fiasco in the main race of 7 km last year, I had decided to, this time, limit myself to run 1,5 km with our five-year-old. It was his first real competition and a great experience for both of us. The only family member who was not happy was the two-and-a-half year old, who also wanted to run. My wife immediately got the message and has already promised that next year we will all do this together.

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The winners of the 7 km Cursa Popular 2008 were Sebastien Cacond and Vinyet Noguero, in the cathegories men and women, respectively.









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Technorati tags: Vilanova, Wirdheim