The Saturday event of the 29th Concurs de Castells ended with a dramatic first-ever win, on the 5th round, of Castellers de Lleida, thanks to a 2de8f. The claret-shirt colla had previously completed the 4de8, 7de8 and 3de8.
Their cap de colla, Marc Giné, was very pleased for their win on the Saturday event of the Concurs de Castells “for the first time ever”. He stated that they need to “assess everything accomplished up until now”.
Second came Colla Castellera Sant Pere i Sant Pau, with 2 basic 8-floor castells: the 3de8 and 4de8. On the third round, the green-shirt colla wowed everyone completing the best castell of the event: the 5de8, on the very first attempt they’d ever made. The colles from Tarragona and Lleida were neck and neck until the very last round, something truly exciting and memorable.
Jordi Gaya, cap de colla of the 'tarragonins', celebrated, very emotionally, this achievement. “Today we reached a new top-notch 8-floor milestone”, which had been completed, as seen by Gaya, with “fair ease”.
Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia ended in third position, most definitely affected by their fall on the very first round after partly completing the 2de8f. The navy-blue-shirt colla, which had the 3de9f as their main weapon, had to change their plans and settle on 2 basic 8-floor castells: the 3de8 and 4de8.
Their 'cap de colla', Ferran Pons, stated that the event “had been very tough” for the colla. “Everything went immediately wrong and we then had to manage many variables”. Pons though, was pleased for completing the 4de8 and 3de8 despite a number of forced changes in various positions and the fact they had been successful after such an important fall.
The Consellera de Cultura of the Tarragona Town Hall, Sandra Ramos, congratulated all the participating colles, but specially the 3 winners. “Never before did a Saturday event have such excitement up to the very last minute”, said. “This has been a fantastic diada”.
The Conseller d’Unió Europea i Acció Exterior of Govern de la Generalitat, Jaume Duch, and the Major of Tarragona, Rubén Viñuales, handed the trophies to the 3 winners.
16 colles completed the best performance of the season
Out of the 18 participating colles in the Saturday event of the Concurs de Castells, 14 achieved the best performance of the season and 2, matched it. Special mention to the 5de8 by Colla Castellers de Sant Pere i Sant Pau, the very first one of their history, as well as the 3de8 and 9de7 by Colla Jove de Barcelona. The 9de7 by Xiquets del Serrallo is the very one ever completed by the colla from the sailing neighbourhood. Also, worth mentioning the 2de7 partially completed by Castellers de Mollet, the very first one in their 32 years of history.
The Concurs improved the results seen in the last edition. 2 years ago, only one colla completed three 8-floor castells. This year, it was the first 3 colles that achieved this milestone.
This fact, compared to the last edition, also allowed for more castells of higher difficulty than the 3de8. In fact, a total of 5 castells beat the single castell that was more difficult than a 3de8 in 2022: that is, two 7de8, a 2de8f and a 5de8.
Health interventions
Due to falls and other incidents ended with 106 health interventions and 16 transfers to hospital, 6 of which were soon back to the plaça.
Gralles Competition
The jury of the Concurs de Grups de Gralles picked Castellers de Mollet, Castellers de Sant Cugat and Colla Jove de Castellers de Sitges as finalists. In the final are waiting Castellers d’Altafulla, which got there after their performance on the Torredembarra event. The rest of finalists will be selected from the Sunday event.
An International Event with great attendance
In the morning, just before the second event of the Concurs de Castells, the traditional International Event was held in Plaça de la Font in Tarragona, with 4 colles from outside Catalonia. Xiquets de Copenhagen, Castellers de Madrid, Castellers d’Andorra and Castellers de París performed on a very exciting event. Also, the Govindas from Mumbai completed a spectacular performance with 6-and-7-floor constructions, something that wowed the excited crowd.
Xiquets de Copenhagen completed the 3de6, 5de6 and 4de6a. They also tried, for the first time in their history, the 2de6, but they had to abort the performance just as the 'enxaneta' was about to completed the castell.
On the other hand, Castellers d’Andorra completed three 6-floor castells: the 5de6, 2de6 and 4de6a. They also managed to partially complete the p5.
Colla Castellera de Madrid completed the 3de6a, 4de6 and 3de6. The so-called “gatos” did the exact same performance as Castellers de París.
Once the event was over, other colles that attended the event completed 3 pilars. These were 4-floor pilars by Castellers de Lausanne, Castellers de Zúric and Colla Castellera d’Edinburgh.
After the International Event, the Major of Tarragona, Rubén Viñuales, and the Conseller d’Unió Europea i Acció Exterior del Govern de la Generalitat, handed a present to all the colles for such an emotional and memorable performance.
