30 years since the Olympics opened in Barcelona
Today Monday 25 July marks exactly 30 years since the Olympics Games officially began in Barcelona with a spectacular Opening Ceremony.
Forever associated to the song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, which could not be performed live to the sad death of the former a few months earlier, memorable moments included the cauldron being lit by a flaming arrow and several new countries, including the reunified Germany, the return of South Africa following the lifting of apartheid in the country and the ‘Unified team’ representing the now former USSR.
But the games were also special for FC Barcelona. Both the Camp Nou and Palau Blaugrana were used as venues, and the club had 15 different athletes participating in five different sports.
Spain win gold at Camp Nou
The football stadium hosted five football matches, including the gols medal match won by Spain, 3-2 against Poland.
In front of 95,000 people Albert Ferrer and Josep Guardiola were among the winning team as well as Antonio Pinilla, Francisco Veza, Abelardo Fernández, Luis Enrique and Alfonso Pérez, who had worn or would go on to wear, the blaugrana jersey at some stage of their careers.
The other games played in the Barça stadium were:
Italy 2-1 USA (group stage)
Poland 2-0 Qatar (quarter final)
Australia 2-1 Sweden (quarter final)
Poland 6-1 Australia (semi final)
Ghana 1-0 Australia (bronze medal match
Palau Blaugrana: roller hockey and martial arts
Roller hockey featured at the 1992 Olympics as a demonstration sport. The Palau Blaugrana hosted eight of the games, including the final in which Argentina defeated the host country 8-6. Josep Benito and Joan Carles of FC Barcelona were among the silver medallists.
Three of the winning Argentina team would be returning to the Palau to play for Barça in the future, namely Gaby Cairo, Roberto Roldán and José Luis 'el Negro' Páez.
Ten another Barça athletes
Barça was also represented in basketball, by Juan Antonio San Epifanio 'Epi' and Andrés Jiménez in the Spain team that finished ninth, and José Rafael 'Piculín' Ortiz who finished eighth with Puerto Rico.
David Barrufet, Enric Masip, Ángel Hermida, Iñaki Urdangarin and Lorenzo Rico were in the Spanish handball team that finished fifth.
And in athletics, Jaume Barroso came 14th in the 50 km walk while Daniel Martí failed to make the pole vault final.