How did the anthem of Catalonia stop playing in the Bike Trial World Championship where it faced Spain?

• Controversial news in the Reinosa bike trial world championship when the hymns of Spain and Catalonia sound

A request from the organizational director of the International Bike Trial Union, the delegate of the Spanish Bike Trail Union, the president of the Unió Catalana de BikeTrial and a current world champion: “Please, we want to be outside of politics .

Don't get us in trouble.

Our sport is very small, very technical and we only want boys and girls to ride bicycles.

We're not looking for trouble."

Has everyone agreed and made a statement?

No, all these positions, including the title of champion -of veterans, in this case-, are held by the same person,

, who attends EL MUNDO from Reinosa where a controversial Bike Trial World Championship was organized last week.

In competition there were two differentiated teams, Spain and Catalonia, and both at the opening on Wednesday and at the various podium ceremonies that took place until Saturday, Els Segadors, the Catalan anthem, was played.

«But from the beginning we presented Catalonia as an autonomous community and not as a nation to avoid any problem.

On Saturday from the Reinosa City Council they told us that there had been some commotion with the theme of the anthem and today [for this Sunday] at the closing ceremony and on the podiums we have no longer put it", Casablanca expresses, revealing himself "very surprised" with everything that happened.

Because there was something more than "some stir."

There was a mess that was born far from Reinosa, in the Parliament of Cantabria, and that was getting worse since Friday.

Then the regional coordinator and spokesperson for Citizens in Parliament,

, elevated the Bike Trial World Championship to the political scene with a statement in which he denounced that "the anthem of Catalonia was equated with the rest of the participating anthems" and in which He described this fact as "shame" and "insult".

"You can't make a fool of yourself anymore," he added.

Álvarez even demanded explanations from the president of Cantabria,

, of the Regionalist Party of Cantabria, which governs in Reinosa, but hours after his press release, Vox went further.

Also outside the organizing City Council, its coordinator for Reinosa, Mario Gil, demanded that the organization of the championship "rectify and withdraw Catalonia as a country" and assured that the City Council and the Government of Cantabria participated in the "separatist coven" by financially supporting the competition .

Despite these claims, there was no expulsion from Catalonia.

Although Els Segadors was no longer heard at the World Cup.

"The International Bike Trial Union has been in existence for 30 years and nothing like this had ever happened," explains Casablanca, who narrates how the independence of Catalonia was forged in its sport.

A sport without federations, not official

Contrary to what happened years ago in roller hockey, in this case the separation was not born from the Pro Seleccions Catalanes Platform, a political instrument of the Generalitat, or at least that is how one of its protagonists relates it.

«The Bike Trial has about 200 practitioners in Catalonia and about 50 in the rest of Spain.

Since 1992, when the International Union and the Spanish Union were created, almost all the participants who went to the World Cups, both in elite and lower categories, were Catalan.

In 2009, Catalonia was asked to compete separately in order to have more cyclists than the rest of Spain in international championships”, argues the multi-director of a sport that basically consists of overcoming obstacles -rocks, stones, logs...- on top of a bike .

A very minority sport.

In fact, it is not officially a sport.

Because the Bike Trial does not have federations, only unions of clubs, something that leaves it outside the rules of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), an organization with which EL MUNDO could not contact yesterday.

The International Cycling Federation (UCI) has trial competitions, but the rules are different and it lives apart from what the International Bike Trial Union does.

"That discipline is not under our umbrella," the Spanish Cycling Federation recalled yesterday.

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