Cobi

It seems that inmigration from Cuba and Venezuela is paying off for the Spanish team. I just checked and most of the players were born there or were born/raised in Spain but have family in these countries.

ESPAÑA After a long selection process, Mecano has been selected as the Spanish representative for the Totallympics Open International Song Contest 2023. The band, formed by Ana Torroja (main voice), Nacho Cano and José María Cano, became the most popular music group in the country in the 1980s. The song Barco a Venus, was released in 1983 as the first single of their second album, and it is about the dangers of drug addiction. Mecano - Barco a Venus Lyrics (Spanish): Lyrics (English): I hope you like it! Initially, I was planning to send "Hijo de la Luna", "La Fuerza del Destino" or "Mujer contra mujer", more successful pop songs of Mecano, but I decided that it would be nice to send a different music style and the techno-pop of this song is very identifiable with the 1980s. My other option was Hombres G, but I will save them for a future edition .

In Spain is the opposite. From 1992 onwards, all the flagbearers finished at least top8, and from 2008 all made it to the podium with the exception of Mireia Belmonte in Tokyo (she finished 4th).

Carolina Marín (badminton) and Marcus Walz (canoeing) for . I would prefer Maialen Chorraut over Carolina, but she competes the next day.

is in! Last year I sent a song from the late 1960s, so this time I will probably pick something from the 1980s. I have 2 groups in mind, but I will have to take some time to check their songs and pick one that represents the spirit of these years (La Movida), the political and cultural openness after Franco's dictatorship. The most popular songs of this decade were hits in Spanish and Latin American markets, but I highly doubt they will perform well in the international scene.

games are broadcasted by our public TV. With a VPN you can watch all the Spanish games (+ semis and final) in https://www.rtve.es/play/deportes/

Even though sailing is the top Olympic sport for Spain, it doesn't get much time on TV. I remember that in 2012 Alabau won gold in windsurf and the only race live on TV was the medal race when she had already secured the gold medal. On the other hand, I think they showed some group stage races of the Elliot6m team because it was easy to follow, as well as all the eliminatory races.

We also had the 3-woman crew match racing event in 2012 (Elliot 6m) and it was pretty fun to watch.

Our leader in women's foil got injured in the last World Cup of the season and the reserve is a very mediocre fencer, so we basically have no chance against Germany this year. On the other hand, let's see if we can make it to Round of 8 in men's epee. Our best fencer, Yulen Pereira, also got injured in the last World Cup and has been performing very poorly since then, but at least he can participate and the other 3 fencers are not bad either.

Valencia and Changzhou will host the OQTs.

Valencia and Lahore will host the OQTs.

wins! The only nation, apart from , that has won this competition more than once

leading the medal table after 2 days!

That seems a very nice trip! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think that Extremadura is one of the hidden gems of Spain. It doesn't have nearly as many visitors as Andalucía or Catalunya (probably because it doesn't have a coast) but it has amazing landscapes and historic cities from Roman and Medieval times.

TEAM SPAIN 306 athletes - 26 sports Athletics - 46 Rugby7 - 26 (2 teams) Fencing - 24 Beach Handball - 24 (2 teams) Beach Soccer - 24 (2 teams) Canoe Sprint - 21 Taekwondo - 16 Artistic Swimming - 13 Shooting - 12 Canoe Slalom - 11 Boxing - 11 Padel - 8 Badminton - 8 3x3 Basketball - 8 (2 teams) Judo - 8 (1 team) Diving - 7 Archery - 6 Cycling Mountain Bike - 6 Triathlon - 6 Modern Pentathlon - 5 Karate - 5 Table Tennis - 4 Muaythai - 4 Kickboxing - 3 Cycling BMX freestyle - 2 Breaking - 2 No representation: Sport climbing, teqball and ski jumping

I have them in my list of potential candidates for the Open Edition . I have not thought about my entry for this year, but they will appear sooner or later.

Enjoy! Last time I checked the weather was going to be quite nice during the whole week.

CONGRATULAZIONI, ITALIA! La Rappresentante di Lista - Ciao Ciao See you at the 2023 Open Edition and then next year, if @SteveParker @Pablita @Henry_Leon want, in Italy!

GOODBYE, SEVILLA! Before we end the ceremony with the winning song, I'd like to thank all users for their participation and support, and especially @mrv86for organizing the draw, @Olympian1010 for helping with the Team Event format and @vinipereira for the improvements made to the logo. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed preparing it. It has been a pleasure to have been able to contribute my grain of sand to the history of TISC. Congratulations to all the users who have met their expectations with the results and encouragement to those who hoped to be in a better position. In 6 months you will have a new opportunity, so don't get discouraged . Yesterday we started the opening ceremony with the first seconds of the Barcelona 1992 ceremony, so what better way to put the finishing touch to these 6 weeks of competition than with the performance of Sarah Brightman and Josep Carreras that closed the first and last Olympics held in Spain. Ladies and gentlemen, Amigos para Siempre

A GREAT DAY FOR NON-ENGLISH SONGS It is only the fourth time in 20 editions that a non-English song wins the Totallympics International Song Contest! Therefore, Italian becomes the second most succesful language with 2 victories ( A2018 & A2023), while German ( A2014) and Galician ( A2022) remains tied in the third place. However, this is the first time ever that 1st and 2nd place are obtained by non-English songs. The silver medal for is also the best result so far for a song in a Scandinavian/Nordic language. Fun fact: English songs have a 60% win rate in Annual editions, but are undefeated in Open editions.

TOP5 RECAP Let's take a closer look to the stats of the 5 strongest nations of the day: 5th place - 130 points United States of America Judah & the Lion - Scream! @Olympian1010 @dezbee2008 @owenp_23 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2 4 0 2 0 2 1 0 2 4th place - 151 points Netherlands Di-Rect - Through The Looking Glass @heywoodu 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2 1 2 3 2 4 0 1 0 3rd place - 158 points Germany Michael Schultle - With You @catgamer 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 3 2 2 0 1 0 2 1 0 2nd place - 166 points Finland Bess - Ram pam pam @Finnator123 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 4 3 3 0 1 0 0 1 0 1st place - 199 points Italy La Rappresentante di Lista - Ciao Ciao @Pablita @Henry_Leon @SteveParker 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2 2 0 1 3 1 1 1 1

TRENDS OF THE DAY Even though didn't make it to the left part of the scoreboard until the 7th jury, they still managed to get 87 points (44% of the total) before Lunch Break. However, not all nations had the same trend. got 93 points in the first half of the contest but only 37 in the second half, being the only team within the top12 with more than 65% of their points scored thanks to nations voting in Sessions 1 and 2 (71,54%). During this time they managed to set the record for the longest voting streak, with 9 nations in a row giving at least one point to ! On the other hand we have and . Serbia only had 15 points halfway, but they had a fantastic second half scoring 88 points, only behind and . Ukraine had a similar trend, even though they were in last place after 12 juries, they managed to make it to the top10 in the last vote, with 79% of the total points obtained in Sessions 3 and 4.

MEDAL TABLE 32 out of the 38 nations have won at least one medal! The most succesful nation without a medal was , that received points from 14 nations. Some countries in the top10 such as or received points from less nations than Sweden. On the other hand, only scored points from 8 nations, but 3 of them gave them their gold medal, achieving an oustanding 5th place in the medal table. A much better result than the 27th place in the scoreboard. proved once again that they have the most succeful entry of the edition. They received points from 24 different nations and 12 of these put the Italian entry in their top3! The closest nations in this stat were and , with 21 nations giving them at least one point. # NATION G S B 1 ITALY 6 2 4 2 DENMARK 4 1 2 3 FINLAND 3 2 2 4 NORWAY 3 1 1 5 INDONESIA 3 0 0 6 GERMANY 2 4 2 7 SERBIA 2 1 3 8 USA 2 1 2 9 PORTUGAL 2 1 0 10 HUNGARY 2 0 1 11 NETHERLANDS 1 3 2 12 SPAIN 1 3 0 13 UKRAINE 1 1 2 14 IRELAND 1 1 1 14 GREAT BRITAIN 1 1 1 16 LITHUANIA 1 0 1 16 ROMANIA 1 0 1 18 SLOVENIA 1 0 0 18 CROATIA 1 0 0 20 FRANCE 0 2 2 21 CZECH REPUBLIC 0 2 1 21 CHINA 0 2 1 23 SLOVAKIA 0 2 0 23 POLAND 0 2 0 25 MEXICO 0 1 2 26 INDIA 0 1 1 26 MALTA 0 1 1 28 GREECE 0 1 0 28 KAZAKHSTAN 0 1 0 28 ARGENTINA 0 1 0 31 CHILE 0 0 3 32 BRAZIL 0 0 2 33 SWEDEN 0 0 0 33 MOLDOVA 0 0 0 33 BULGARIA 0 0 0 33 NEW ZEALAND 0 0 0 33 ISRAEL 0 0 0 33 TUNISIA 0 0 0

TEAM EVENT RESULTS GRAND FINAL SCOREBOARD SESSION 4 (Votes 30-38) 1 ITALY 69 20 SLOVENIA 17 2 FINLAND 69 21 LITHUANIA 16 3 UKRAINE 52 22 BRAZIL 14 4 SERBIA 44 23 SLOVAKIA 12 5 NORWAY 41 24 GREECE 11 6 USA 34 25 CZECH REPUBLIC 11 7 FRANCE 31 26 BULGARIA 10 8 IRELAND 28 27 POLAND 10 9 DENMARK 27 28 CROATIA 9 10 GERMANY 27 29 PORTUGAL 9 11 NETHERLANDS 25 30 KAZAKHSTAN 9 12 MEXICO 24 31 NEW ZEALAND 9 13 CHINA 22 32 TUNISIA 6 14 ARGENTINA 22 33 CHILE 6 15 ROMANIA 22 34 SWEDEN 5 16 GREAT BRITAIN 21 35 MALTA 4 17 HUNGARY 20 36 INDONESIA 4 18 SPAIN 19 37 INDIA 3 19 MOLDOVA 18 38 ISRAEL 0 These are the full results of the Team Event: # TEAM Session 1 B1 Session 2 B2 Session 3 B3 Session 4 B4 TOT 2nd and 3rd highest Streak Top3 combined Collusion Top4 combined Votes Highest 1-Jury 1 MADRID BEARS 42 12 28 2 32 +5 (3) 70 9 42 22 14 +15 (11) 66 70 9 36 14 +30 (22) 70 58 12 62 5 +15 (27) 515 2 BARCELONA DRAGONS 66 6 4 13 70 +30 (6) 46 6 38 11 7 +5 (10) 42 2 30 21 32 +15 (15) 36 13 32 22 38 +30 (28) 417 3 ZARAGOZA LIONS 24 50 16 18 (2) 32 62 34 24 +30 (20) 4 28 8 13 (7) 3 66 4 30 (16) 319 4 PAMPLONA BULLS 10 54 58 8 +15 (4) 16 20 66 54 (8) 16 3 17 12 (7) 11 42 50 15 (20) 317 5 TOLEDO EAGLES 62 3 22 34 +5 (3) 50 3 9 26 (0) 62 10 8 26 +15 (15) 34 1 28 16 (19) 301 6 GRANADA LYNXES 46 5 26 11 +5 (3) 19 3 36 6 +5 (10) 15 6 54 58 (13) 2 7 46 6 (12) 287 7 VALENCIA BATS 17 38 7 10 (2) 18 28 58 15 (0) 9 22 38 6 (12) 18 19 54 8 +5 (24) 265 8 MALLORCA DOLPHINS 1 19 36 21 (2) 30 3 21 17 (0) 24 46 2 50 (14) 24 9 17 21 (23) 244 9 MURCIA FLAMINGOS 14 30 20 15 (2) 4 13 10 12 (0) 18 32 19 20 +15 (15) 26 10 14 20 (15) 200

WELCOME TO THE CLOSING CEREMONY! GRAND FINAL SCOREBOARD 1 ITALY 199 20 CZECH REPUBLIC 61 2 FINLAND 166 21 CROATIA 61 3 GERMANY 158 22 BRAZIL 59 4 NETHERLANDS 151 23 MOLDOVA 57 5 USA 130 24 HUNGARY 57 6 DENMARK 127 25 CHILE 57 7 FRANCE 118 26 ROMANIA 57 8 NORWAY 111 27 INDONESIA 52 9 SERBIA 103 28 ARGENTINA 52 10 UKRAINE 99 29 LITHUANIA 51 11 SPAIN 91 30 CHINA 51 12 SLOVAKIA 89 31 MALTA 50 13 MEXICO 89 32 SWEDEN 49 14 IRELAND 83 33 GREECE 49 15 SLOVENIA 83 34 KAZAKHSTAN 43 16 PORTUGAL 75 35 NEW ZEALAND 35 17 GREAT BRITAIN 73 36 BULGARIA 21 18 POLAND 70 37 TUNISIA 13 19 INDIA 63 38 ISRAEL 11 That's all folks! Congratulations again to Italy for their second TISC win ever, as well as Finland and Germany for their medals! Before saying goodbye, I would like to share with you some stats about the edition.