Protesting on a podium, which is what Tommie Smith and John Carlos did in 1968 with their gloved fists raised on the most prestigious stage in sport, the Olympic Games, becomes impossible this Sunday in a popular race in Madrid. It occurs in the 10 kilometers of Ciudad Lineal, organized by the District Board. Miguel del Pozo, who has won the race in 33m34s – lightning – climbs to the highest box, and there, almost as a family, he takes out a small banner with a motto –Let’s defend the pine forest, more pines, less asphalt— which demands the recovery of a forest mass hit by the snow of Filomena in the La Elipa neighborhood, instead of transforming it into a park like there are so many others in the capital. His claim is short-lived. Nadia Álvarez, PP councilor on Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida’s team, removes the cloth. Protest is prohibited.
“We didn’t expect at all that what was messed up would happen,” explains Tereixa Blanco, the runner who hands the flag to the winner, since she had planned to show it herself on the podium, an impossible goal after being 10 seconds away from third place in your category. “We knew there were going to be politicians, because the race is organized by the municipal board, and we wanted them to see that the neighbors also have things to say,” adds this amateur athlete, who is part of the La Elipa neighborhood association and the neighborhood platform that demands to recover the park in a different way than projected. “At no time was anyone attacked, a flag was raised with a criticism, always with respect, and to try to make visible a neighborhood demand in a district activity.”
In fact, Blanco herself had stood on another podium in September, and there she had carried out a similar action, but this time without politicians involved. Then and now, their concern is what is going to happen to the forest mass of the La Elipa pine forest park, which occupies more than 14 hectares with views of the Pirulí.
“Filomena “It was the finishing touch,” he says about the effects of the storm on the conservation of an enclave where there were already deteriorated play areas. “Many pine trees fell, others had to be cut down, and they have not been reforested,” he says. “We were told that it was going to be regenerated as a pine forest, but the current project is to convert it into another park, planting bushes and some trees. What we want is for it to continue to be a pine forest, a forest park, not just another park.”
Thus, the neighbors believe that they are going to stop having a pine forest and have what they call “a hard park.” Translated: they will have more banks, more urbanized roads, more lighting, and less nature. And that is why they demand that the area be declared a forest park.
This is how we got to the 10 kilometer race on Sunday. To claim the podium. And the friction with Álvarez, who had to be asked to return the banner, according to Blanco. It was not a pleasant moment.
According to Blanco, the councilor reproached the winner for his attitude — “don’t manipulate” —. This newspaper asked the City Council’s communication department to contact Álvarez, without having obtained an affirmative response at the time of publication of this article. The City Council has limited itself to specifying the following: “the district councilor, as the organizing entity of the race, at the time of taking the photo with the winners of the race on the podium, politely informed the winner that he was not time to display a banner in a sporting context and out of respect for the rest of the participants. When the photo was finished, the banner was returned to him.”
The mayor, in any case, defended her actions through a message on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.
Reviews of Más Madrid
“[No hay] neither cement nor paving stones in the recovery of the Pinar de la Elipa, [hay] improvement of roads, bike lanes, accessibility, tree planting,” wrote the councilor of the Ciudad Lineal district and president of the Ciudad Lineal PP. “Perhaps the novelty,” he argued; “It would be for people to know the projects and the reality so as not to allow themselves to be manipulated,” he added. “I have met on 7 occasions, listened to and included their contributions to the pine forest,” he concluded about the association that leads the protests, which he defined as “extremely radical” due to the shouts uttered by its president at the festivities in this district. summer (“We shit on the mayor, we shit on the municipal board”).
For Más Madrid, the party that leads the opposition in the capital’s City Council, the municipal project is similar to those that have already been carried out in parks such as Calero, Aluche, Cornisa, Paraíso Park, or that of Olof Palme.
“Cobblestone, put granite, pave them, in short, change topsoil for cement,” they describe in the left-wing formation, heir to Ahora Madrid, which the City Council led between 2015 and 2019.
This is how councilor Eduardo Fernández Rubiño, from Más Madrid, sums it up. “The actions of the district president seem intolerable to us. Beyond a lack of education, it is a censorious attitude, a censorship,” he says. “Removing a banner with a swat is not the way a councilor has to do, it is absolutely unnecessary, they should give explanations,” he claims. “As for the reform itself, it is a park that clearly needs intervention, but the PP City Council’s way of intervening is always to tile, put more cement and granite, cheap materials, worsen the green areas and harden them,” he describes. “They do not put soils that improve drainage,” he denounces. And he concludes: “That is what the neighbors are rising up against, who consider that the intervention worsens what was there. “They have to listen more and do less of these kinds of stunts.”
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