Word: barcelona
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That was a little how it felt as Barcelona, the often unshaven but designer- crazy capital of Catalonia, set flame to the Games of the 25th Olympiad. The occasion was a golden opportunity for presenting the city as a shiny new capital of a postnational world. It was also a quadrilingual glimpse into a multicultural future. Music at the celebrations that opened the Games came from an atlas of names -- Ryuichi Sakamoto, Angelo Badalamenti (of Twin Peaks fame), Andrew Lloyd Webber; Placido Domingo was followed by a sea of "living sculptures" designed by a man from the West Indies...
...early going, however, had been one that did not march but made its presence felt at every turn: independent-minded Catalonia, which is determined to cast these as the Catalan, not the Spanish, Games. A longtime enemy of Castile, delighting in a language that Franco had banned, Barcelona was eager not just to show off its faster, higher, stronger ^ self -- reconstruction is almost as trendy as deconstruction here -- but to emphasize its distance from the Spain of myth, and of Madrid. FREEDOM FOR CATALONIA signs (in English) were draped from balconies and shoulders, and buttons and stickers proclaiming Catalonian independence...
...deeper sense, though, the weathered, down-to-earth city seemed too rooted and too various to be greatly transformed by pervasive Cobi (as the Olympic mascot is called). Barcelona appeared ready to take over the world, and not the other way round. In Seville, when the Olympic torch arrived on its way to the opening ceremonies, crowds flocked into the Plaza de San Francisco to snap up Cobi dolls, key rings and T shirts, and catch a flash of history. In Barcelona, by contrast, life continued as usual. It flows and crests from dawn to dawn here: sunny Sunday mornings...
...have periods in the middle of their names (Paral.Lel). Journalists were struggling to work out why three different coins were worth a peseta (less than a cent) and whether the regal Placa de Catalunya really was enhanced by an enormous inflatable M & M. More than a half-century ago, Barcelona, the city of seasoned oppositionists, had been all set to hold the "People's Games," to counter the Hitler Olympics of Berlin. But civil war interceded. Now, as fireworks lighted up the sky above the pulsing stadium and competitors consulted Video Tarot screens in the glittering subway stations, prospects...
...Tokyo last August, Powell came into his own. He bounded down the runway, hit the board and soared 8.95 m, eclipsing by 5 cm the "unbreakable" record set by America's Bob Beamon 24 years ago. A believer in nonstop improvement, Powell thinks he could set another record in Barcelona...