The book you will hold before you is the product of huge efforts to restore the memory of a journalist who has been at the forefront of numerous significant events in Barcelona’s sporting history.

Joan Manel Surroca has experienced great change over the course of his professional life, always taking the positives and successfully adapting by riding the waves just like a surfer. The last of these waves is the most current of media: social networks, and his blog, El Marcador (http://elmarcadordejmsurroca.blogspot.com.es/), which provides the basis for this book, recently marked its fourth anniversary.

When he explained his plans to me I did not hesitate for a second: they had to be put into practice. His experience, the events he has lived through and his writings would be valuable to so many people, academics studying sport, the Olympic movement, those with sporting interests… And it had to be published by the Barcelona Olympic Foundation.

The Olympic and Paralympic Games leave behind such legacy as infrastructure, facilities, spaces in cities, but our story is also a part of that legacy, the events which occurred and which can be identified. As a result, this legacy includes the details provided by those professionals who witnessed the happenings at first hand. News and current affairs ultimately become historical documentation with a value as a curiosity, but also a useful tool for academics studying sport, the Olympic movement and the history of Olympic cities.

This book is full of interesting information, ranging over Barcelona’s Olympic vocation, Olympic sports, individual names with unique stories, alongside curiosities and anecdotes, or the changes brought about by new technologies, the phenomenon of TV, and sponsorship and solidarity. It is an entertaining but highly accurate book, with a named index allowing individual accounts to be consulted. I am convinced that you will enjoy reading it.