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HISTORY
> History
The "El Corte Inglés Cursa" is one of the most important and better known popular races. This is greatly due to the support given by both public and private institutions and, most of all, to the massive response of the citizens of Barcelona who, through their participation, have made it possible for the celebration of this sporting event to be eagerly expected year after year.
As Jordi Pintó, of the External Relations Department of El Corte Inglés in Catalonia, puts it "we shall ceaselessly reiterate that the Cursa shall be whatever its participating citizens wish it to be. The anonymous participants play the leading roles in the Cursa. Twentyeight years after it was first run, the Cursa still generates an extraordinary level of collective illusion. That is its main claim to success".
The Cursa held its first edition in 1979, when 17,184 runners took part, out of which approximately 85% were non-federated participants. By the year 1994 the number of participants in the Cursa had grown to 109,457 athletes, a number of runners that still today holds a Guinness Record. In its last edition, 52.708 persons took part in the Cursa. In the whole editions 1.615.962 runners had take part along his 29 years history.
Since 1986 The "El Corte Inglés Cursa" also has offered his exceptional mechanisms of difusión to entities or civil events of a special. Sport Aid - Tot el món corre per Àfrica (1986), Fundación de Ayuda Contra la Drogadicción - Engánchate a la Vida (1990), Intermón (1991), Manos Unidas (1994), FASE, Fundación Anti-Sida España (1995), Red Cross(1996), la Fundació Privada d'Investigació Cardiovascular (1997), la Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras (1998), Unicef - Fondo de las
Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (1999), Médicos Sin Fronteras (2000), Banc
d’Ulls per a tractaments de la ceguesa (2001), Fundació Esclerosi Múltiple
(2002), la Fundación Vicente Ferrer (2005), Manos Unidas (2006) and this year El Casal dels Infants del Raval, are the entities and not governmental organizations that have had a strong protagonism in previous editions of the race.
The adhesion of the race to the Olympic Games and Paralympics in 1992, and in the celebration of events like 150 anniversary of the birth of the City police (1993), the X Police and Fireman World Games (2003) or the Fòrum Universal de las Culturas (2004), are also four good examples of this links between the race and the city that receives it.
Besides, The “El Corte Inglés Cursa” has got with the unconditional and disinterested support of sportsmen and famous prominent figures, as Manel Estiarte, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, Àlex Crivillé, Miguel Indurain, Johan Cruyff, Ronald Koeman, Pete Sampras, Magic Johnson, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Montserrat Caballé, Pau Gasol, Rafael Nadal, Joan Manuel Serrat, Carlos Sáinz Anderson Luis de Souza "Deco", Luis García, Eto'o, are some of 148 famous prominent figures who, from 1993, have offered his disinterested collaboration to the organization of the race. Throughout these years, these messages of support demonstrate the special characteristics of a sports activity that has turned across the time into patrimony of all the citizens.
The “El Corte Inglés Cursa” has turned into a sports activity of recognized international prestige that combines perfectly the festive habitual character of such a massive event with the rigor, the control and the seriousness that demands from any athletic competition and that in this case is supported by the Catalan Federation of Athletics.tletisme.
