sporting facilities of Barcelona

Olympic Port.

The city, which hosted the 1992 Olympics, has a comprehensive network of municipal sports facilities, plus private schools. Recent studies show Barcelona is second only to Boston in the United States for practitioners of sport.

Moreover, the topography of the city, its climate, and local policies to create bike lanes has proliferated the use of bicycles as a transport vehicle. Also common is the use of skates, especially in the area of the Olympic Village and Old City, where there are different skateparks.

The opening of the Olympic Port and the remodeling of the Old Port, in 1992 and the recent opening of the new marina at San Adria de Besos, in 2004 the Forum area, has prompted the practice of nautical sports.

The city offers the opportunity to participate in a large number of sporting competitions in the street. The most popular are the Race of El Corte Inglés (with an average of 60,000 participants annually), the Carrera de la Merced, Career Fire, Race Jean Bouin, the Marathon of Barcelona, Milla Sagrada Familia, the San Silvestre Barcelonesa The Feast of the bike, crossing the Puerto de Navidad, and the Feast of skates.  In the summer months there are various organized sports competitions on the beaches of the city.

With capacity for 98,787 spectators, the Camp Nou is the biggest stadium in Europe.

Barcelona is a city which offers first class sporting events. In the city is the headquarters of FC Barcelona (whose facilities can be seen in football games), basketball, handball, football and hockey. It is also headquarters of the RCD Espanyol, which play their football matches at the Olympic Stadium Lluis Companys.

The city stands out in the tennis world for the quantity, prestige and seniority of some of their clubs such as the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona, the Tennis Club Health, Barcino, Turo, etc.  Barcelona has been the host of Spain where the team has played the majority of their matches for the Federation Cup and Davis Cup. The tennis tournament Godo is played in the RCT Barcelona and is the leading tournament on clay.

Barcelona also has clubs for swimming, water polo, such as the CN Barcelona Montjuic Swimming Club and a number of important partners, and for fans of motor sports, this is the European city with the highest proportion of motorcycles per capital.

On the outskirts of the city (within the province of Barcelona) are other important facilities, such as the High Performance Center (CAR) of San Cugat, where they receive specialized training equipment for screening young athletes from Spain, and the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo, where races are held in the motorcycling world championship (Catalonia Grand Prix Motorcycle) and Formula 1 (Grand Prix of Spain).