The 1992 Barcelona Olympics was marked by openness and unity after a long period of controversy and conflicts. The political changes in the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed the Olympics to take place without a boycott for the first time since 1972. The Olympics also coincided with the unification of East and West Germany and the dissolution of the USSR and Yugoslavia.
Armando Calvo joined the organizing committee of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1987, initially as the Director General of Technology and Infrastructure, then as the Director General of Operations, and during the Games, as the Director General of the Olympic Village.
Before joining the Olympic team, he worked for Sony in Spain. This career path was not unusual. He said in an interview with RFI that no one within the Barcelona 1992 organizing committee had experience in organizing major sports events.
Barcelona 1992 opens
On July 25, 1992, the opening ceremony of the Olympics tournament took place.
The theme of the ceremony was the myths and legends of Hercules, who is considered the founder of Barcelona.
Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé were supposed to perform the opening music "Barcelona" at the Games' opening, but with Mercury's death eight months before the Olympics, a recording of the duet was played during the ceremony instead.
Another duet, Amigos Para Siempre by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black, performed by Sarah Brightman and José Carreras, was performed live at the opening ceremony.
The mascot of the Barcelona Olympics was a puppy named Cobi, a Catalan sheepdog designed in the Cubist style by Valencia designer Javier Mariscal.
The official emblem of the Barcelona Summer Games was the figure of a person seemingly jumping over a barrier made up of 5 Olympic rings. It was designed by Barcelona artist Josep Maria Trias.
Revamping Barcelona
"In a sense, we put Barcelona on the world map," Cavlo said commenting on the legacy left after the 1992 Olympics.
"The summer games in Barcelona are often cited as a positive example of the Olympic impact on the host city. Extensive work was carried out to modernize and reconstruct entire districts of the city on the occasion of hosting the Games."
The most prominent example of Olympic urban transformation is the port area of Barcelona.
It was decided to build the Olympic Village near the coast; the new districts of Villa Olímpica, Poblenou, and Fórum effectively created a new image of Barcelona as a seaside city.
In the former industrial port, water filtration work was carried out, new beaches and leisure areas were created. As a result, after the Olympics,the area became a bustling residential area and tourist attraction.
Armando Calvo notes that after the Olympics, the flow of tourists to Barcelona increased enormously overall, but he particularly highlights maritime tourism - the appearance of cruise liners in the port of Barcelona.
"The main challenge was that no one within the organizing committee had experience in organizing such a significant event," Calvo said.
"We talked to people who had worked in other organizing committees. I even lived in Seoul for three months before the Seoul Olympics in 1988 to follow the preparations. But in our organising committee, no one had such experience."*
The new nations
Like all Olympic Games, the Barcelona edition did not escape the influence of geopolitics.
Sports historian Thierry Therret explained that between 1989 and the 1992 Olympics, history accelerated: the Berlin Wall fell, the communist regime came to an end in Eastern Europe, an active geopolitical process unfolded in the Balkans, new independent nations formed, and recent adversaries united.
"At that time, the Olympic Games were held in Barcelona, that is, in a country that did not face serious geopolitical difficulties, but the world around it was on fire and in the process of rebuilding," Therret said.
In Barcelona, Germany had single team for the first time since reunification. Armando Calvo recalls that in terms of preparing for the Olympic Games, the unification of communist and capitalist Germany did not pose particular difficulties:
"I remember we had meetings with different national Olympic committees. At the time, I met representatives from the NOC of West Germany and the NOC of East Germany. But ultimately, everything went smoothly: at one point, they simply informed us of the merger, and it posed no organisational problems."
The bigger challenge, as Calvo recalls, was the emergence of new countries on the Olympic map following the collapse of the USSR and the war in the Balkans.
"Awar was ongoing in the Balkans, and Yugoslavia had ceased to exist. For us, this meant the loss of all our usual contacts, as we worked with the Yugoslav National Olympic Committee. And the NOCs of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina emerged."
According to historian Thierry Terre, for newly independent nations, having their own Olympic committee and participating in the Olympic Games were signs of international recognition. The IOC, in this sense, almost played a kingmaker role: the registration of a new country's National Olympic Committee often preceded its legitimization at the United Nations.
For the first time, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia were represented at the 1992 Olympic Games as independent nations. "Imagine: at the time, at the beginning of the Olympic Games, we didn't have a national anthem for Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina. We asked these countries to provide us with a flag and an anthem. We only had the flag and anthem of Yugoslavia," recalls Armando Calvo.
Furthermore, Barcelona 1992 was the first edition of the Olympic Games where Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia participated as independent nations with their own national teams after the dissolution of the USSR.
Unlike other post-Soviet republics, the Baltic nations managed to submit requests for the registration of their national Olympic committees on time, and their membership, interrupted on the eve of World War II, was reinstated. As a result, individual teams and delegations from each of the three countries traveled to Barcelona.
Neutral Athletes
Serbia, on the other hand, was able to send its delegation to the Olympic Games on the condition that athletes compete in accordance with Olympic neutrality. Calvo, who was responsible for the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Village, explains that organisers feared that the war in the Balkans would create conflicts between delegations and that a special place had been prepared in the Olympic Village for Serbian athletes.
However, interactions between national teams from the former Yugoslavia posed no problems during the Olympic Games:
"In the Olympic Village, during the competition - and I can say this with certainty - there were no problems. I myself witnessed the interaction between Serbian and Croatian athletes, I saw how, in the Olympic Village cafeteria, Serbs and Croats sat side by side at the same table, and no problems arose," recalls Calvo.
"However, Serbian athletes did not have their own flag or anthem at the Barcelona Games.
"From a sports perspective, I remember that the Yugoslav basketball team had been selected for the Olympic tournament, but since Yugoslavia no longer existed, the International Federation had to find a replacement for the Yugoslav team, which also no longer existed. Serbs participated in the 1992 Olympic Games as independent Olympic athletes, meaning they only competed in individual sports and not in team sports.
And when they entered the stadium or won medals, we used the flag and anthem of the Olympic movement," says Armando Calvo.
Additionally, during the war in the Balkans, the Barcelona Olympic organising committee and the city's residents provided humanitarian aid to the population of the other Olympic city - Sarajevo, host of the 1984 Winter Games.
Unified Team
In 1991, the USSR collapsed. The new independent states located on its territory did not all have time to request the registration of their own Olympic committee. For this reason, the IOC made an exceptional decision: to allow countries to compete as a unified team from the former USSR.
This team was composed of representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
In the official competition protocols, the team was referred to as "EUN," the abbreviation for Unified Team. The Olympic flag was raised for the victories of EUN members in team events, and the national flag of the athletes' country of origin was raised when they won individual events.
At the opening ceremony, each team marched with its own flag, but in front there was a common flag - the Olympic flag.
"In the Olympic Village, each time a new delegation arrived, we organised an official reception to welcome the newcomers, deliver a brief speech, raise the country's flag, and listen to its national anthem. In the case of the former USSR, we welcomed a delegation composed of 12 groups, each representing a former republic, each with its own flag. In honor of this delegation, we raised the flag of the Olympic movement to the sound of the Olympic anthem," says Armando Calvo.
Olympic Legacy
"We somehow put Barcelona on the world map," says Armando Calvo, commenting on the legacy left by the 1992 Olympic Games. Indeed, the Barcelona Summer Games are often cited as a positive example of Olympic influence on a host city.
On the occasion of the games, the city modernised and renovated entire neighborhoods. The most striking example of Olympic urban transformation is the Barcelona port area. It was decided to build the Olympic Village near the coast; the new districts of Villa Olímpica, Poblenou, and Fórum de facto created a new image of Barcelona as a seaside city.
The former industrial port saw its waters cleaned, and new beaches and recreational areas were created. This territory thus became a lively residential area and a major tourist attraction.
Tourist boats dock at the pier built for the Olympic Games. Armando Calvo says that since the Olympic Games, the flow of tourists to Barcelona has significantly increased, but he particularly emphasizes the importance of maritime tourism with the appearance of cruise ships in the port of Barcelona.
For Calvo himself, the main source of pride in his participation in the organization and realisation of the 1992 Olympic Games was the opportunity to do something good for the community:
"I joined the organizing committee after working in a private company, and after the Olympic Games, I returned to the private sector. I am proud to have been able to work for the city.
"I never thought that in my professional career, I would have the chance to work for people. And within the organising committee, I had the opportunity to create something for the people, for the residents of Barcelona. I am very proud of that."
