Pedro Delgado, Petrovic or Arkonada have been trending topic in recent days. In the midst of a pandemic, the great stars of the past have circumvented the logical avalanche of content on the coronavirus to sneak into the houses and seat nostalgic adults and young people with a spirit of discovery on the sofa. Retro broadcasts emerged as a desperate resource for sports channels to fill grills that had been sadly empty, but have become an unexpected success: good audiences and great impact on social networks, where people comment on an Epi basket o a goal by Romario as if it were live. Suddenly, Spain shouts again "Perico, Perico, Perico!" at siesta time.

" It is like winning again, " laughs the Segovian cyclist, who in a week has won at Luz Ardiden , has dressed in yellow in Alpe d'Huez , has made Roche falter in La Plagne and raised a Back to Robert MIllar in, where better, Dyc Distilleries . "Even I had not been able to see these stages, so I enjoy them like a dwarf. There was no internet and, until now, they have been clandestine: either you saw them live or you have only heard stories. The kids hallucinate with how different ours was Cycling, without pinganillos and with bikes with which I would not dare go down now, not even a third-class port, "Delgado reasons about a phenomenon that, like everyone, admits a psychological explanation.

Marian Rojas-Estapé , psychiatrist and author of How to Make Good Things Happen to You , an editorial phenomenon that has already sold 200,000 copies. "For many people, sport is their escape route and an almost daily motivation. The imminence of a sporting event that interests us causes the brain's reward system to kick in by anticipating enjoyment. Suddenly, to all those people They have taken away something that is, in quotes, a drug : what excites him, makes him laugh or cry and allows him to disconnect from his problems. And, now more than ever, he needs his dose, even if it is delayed. "

"Yesterday makes us happy today"

But it is this deferred that seems to undermine the very essence of sport. If I already know how it ends, why do I see it? Antoni Daimiel has been the voice of the NBA in Spain for 25 years and is now on TV speaking again about Jordan instead of about LeBron . He gives a gourmet explanation: "We thought that this society, with an excess of leisure options, had turned sport into something just to watch live. Now we discover that, like a movie or a record, sport admits revision. It serves to do justice to athletes that we do not have very categorized or that we have an image created as adolescents, which is an age in which we idealize or despise more emotional factors than sports. Now we make a more weighted judgment. With this we learn " .

True, but that does not explain why the other day the goal of Godín that gave the League to Atleti six years ago shouted in the living room. Am I crazy, doctor? "Not especially. We know that the memory of an event activates the same substances in your brain as when we live them live, be it your wedding or a game. The power of the memory is enormous. I see Iniesta's goal against the Netherlands and, although I know that the ball goes inside and that Spain wins, I am happy again. A game from yesterday makes us happy today, that's why we are watching them ", Rojas-Estapé appeases me.

Sport, like records and books, admits revisions.

Antoni Daimiel

The fact is that all that material was there and nobody paid attention to it. Well, almost nobody. Paco Grande is a RTVE classic and has dedicated the last eight years to bringing order to the infinite archive of public television, the only one that can go beyond nostalgia in the eighties and nineties and show off a goal from Amancio or Gárate . Now it is shown that he was right. "They told me that this was dandruff and, however, whenever we take out old material, people get hooked. And it has an explanation especially applicable in this delicate moment: it unites generations. Grandparents, parents and children sit down to see it , to explain older people to young people how good Sabonis was or where they were when Maceda marked Germany. It unites us in a situation where we need him, "he explains.

"You are not the only one who suffers"

Our main psychiatrist confirms the importance of this collective experience when citizens begin to need something that takes them away from the harsh reality for a while: "Screens are the great mechanism of evasion of our culture and the brain has become used to the fact that, before frustration or boredom, we resort to mobile, TV or computer. But now, instead of distraction, they offer you 95% news on the same topic, a sad topic. These sports broadcasts allow you to disconnect and also people are commenting on them on social networks and it gives you a sense of community. We are afraid and one of the ways to manage it is to feel that you are not the only one suffering. Finding a group that is seeing the same thing as you mitigates that fear " .

It is true, for a while the only fear is that Delgado will be late for the Luxembourg prologue again or give him a shit. It will happen, but it doesn't matter and he knows it: "With this, for a whole generation I stop being a TV commentator and return to being a cyclist. And although the magic of not knowing how it ends is lost, romanticism is added of a less professionalized, more beautiful, more epic sport ... Now we all need something that excites us for a while a day and this succeeds. " As it is. Perico, Perico, Perico!

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