Sports

FC Barcelona have moved four points clear at the top of the Spanish League table after Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez produced a second half wonder-goal to win the Clásico.?Jérémy Mathieu had headed Barça into an early lead before Cristiano Ronaldo equalised for Real Madrid. Sunday night’s Clásico was no disappointment. Both sides served up a veritable footballing feast, and although Real Madrid looked the better side for a large part of the first half, Barça found their A-game after the break and on the back of a fantastic goal from Luis Suárez, marched on to claim three points and take a giant’s step closer to the Liga title.

Jogging has, without a doubt, become a phenomenon in Catalonia. The number of marathon runners doubled from 2008 to 2013 and now stands at 57,000. In 2012, the Barcelona Marathon saw record figures with 16,000 finishers, compared to the 138 that completed the first race in 1978. The rise of running is "something spectacular" and "studies show that 10% of the population are runners and this is certainly going to grow," says Eduardo Grimal, who completed a Master’s in Sports Management. You only have to go one day to the seafront of Barcelona, to the Carretera de les Aigües in Collserola or Montjuïc, stand there for ten minutes and count the number of runners that pass in front of your eyes. But what motivates the runners and is it just a passing fad?

The draw for the Champions League quarter finals has been made, and Barça have been drawn against PSG in a head-to-head battle for a place in the semi-finals of Europe’s premier club competition. The first game will be played in Paris on April 15, and a week later, on April 21, the sides will meet again at the Camp Nou. The two teams, who know each other well from this year's Group F, were the first pair to be drawn. In their group-stage matchups, PSG won the first match in Paris 3–2, but Barça were victorious in the return at Camp Nou, winning 3–1 to top the group, leaving PSG in second. The first match will be without a few big players. Paris Saint-Germain's Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marco Verratti, and Barça's Dani Alves will all be serving suspensions.

FC Barcelona rode a solitary score from the foot of midfielder Ivan Rakitic to top Manchester City 1–0 on a crisp evening at Camp Nou, capping a 3–1 aggregate result and putting the Catalans through to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League. Barça goalkeeper Marc-André Ter Stegen made a diving stop on a late Kun Agüero penalty kick to preserve the victory. Leo Messi, despite being kept off the score sheet, was at or near his best. Manchester City played at the limit of aggressivity throughout the encounter, drawing four first-half yellow cards. Barça’s next opponent will be determined in the quarter-final draw, set for Friday in Nyon, Switzerland.

Barça have the advantage from the first leg and will be looking to secure their place in the Champions League quarter-finals for the eighth successive Seaton. Barça knocked out Manchester City at this stage of the Champions League last season and will be looking to repeat the feat on Wednesday at Camp Nou after the 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium last month in the first leg. FC Barcelona boss Luis Enrique boss named an 18-man squad on Wednesday morning, with Masip, Montoya and Douglas missing out, alongside the injured Vermaelen and Sergio Busquets. Manchester City coach Manuel Pellegrini welcomes back former Barça midfielder Touré Yaya to his squad after suspension.

Barça did what they had to do in the Basque Country and will go into next week’s Clásico against Real Madrid as Spanish League leaders. Eibar proved to be a highly resilient opponent, but two goals from Leo Messi were enough to secure three crucial points. Dani Alves and Jordi Alba were both suspended for Barça’s first ever fixture away to Eibar, so Luis Enrique opted to field an unfamiliar quartet of Adriano, Bartra, Piqué and Montoya at the back. Sergi Roberto stood in for the injured Busquets in midfield. As expected, the home side concentrated on keeping things tight at the back and look for danger on the counter attack and set pieces, and their tactics worked for the first half hour.

Núria Picas was born in Manresa, in central Catalonia, 39 years ago. She considers herself a “daughter of the Montserrat mountain”, where her parents brought her climbing as a child. Since she was little she established a strong bond with nature and is now the ‘number 1’ woman in mountain trail running. Last year she won the Ultra Trail World Tour, a competition with ten races (twelve this year), of at least 100 kilometres each. Last season, Picas ran four of these races winning three times and coming runner-up in the fourth. In 2015, however, her “main goal” goes beyond the running world. She is on cloud nine with her new challenge and will soon be literally closer than ever to the clouds: in the spring she is going to attempt to climb an 8,000-metre peak in the Himalayas.

FIATC Joventut was one of the most important basketball teams in Spain and Europe throughout the Seventies and the Nineties, but an economic crisis took them out of basketball’s elite in 1998. Sixteen years later, Joventut, known as 'la Penya', has completed one of the best first halves of the regular season in its history, is playing entertaining basketball and has impressed everybody at the King Cup in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, winning against the host Herbalife Gran Canaria and coming very close to defeating Real Madrid and reaching the final. Along with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, is one of only three Spanish teams to have won the Euroleague. With its ups and downs, the club has been changing its commercial name since the 1970s, being known as Montigalà Joventut, Festina Joventut, DKV Joventut and FIATC Joventut, among others.

FC Barcelona took full advantage of an opponent that had the courage to come out and attack, storming to an electric 6–1 victory over Rayo Vallecano in front of a packed house at Camp Nou and vaulting them past Real Madrid into first place in the Spanish League standings, for the first time in four months. Messi net three, Suárez added two and Piqué scored one goal. The Argentinian tied Cristiano Ronaldo as the Spanish League's top goal scorer with 30 targets each. In addition, Messi became all-time hat-trick leader for Spanish clubs in official games, with 32 hat tricks in total. Besides, Messi also became the all-time hat trick record in League games, getting 24 and passing Cristiano Ronaldo's 23.

The 2015 Formula 1 World Championship is about to begin and the teams finalised their preparations at the Circuit de Catalunya. 20 racers will be in the spotlight in two weeks’ time for the start of the season, but Formula 1 is not just about the drivers themselves. Apart from the household names of Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, there is a little known world that every two weeks travels from one side of the world to the other. On the one hand, there are the people who work around the F1 team itself such as the press officers, who manage communication between the different parts of the team and also with the media. On the other, all the circuits mobilise an army of volunteers who sacrifice their day job to be "marshals" at the circuit to take care of the drivers’ safety.

FC Barcelona are headed back to the final of the Spanish Cup. Neymar’s two goals sandwich Suárez’s strike. The Brazilian scored two minutes after the opening kick off and again two minutes from the final whistle to lead the Catalans to a commanding 3–1 win over hosts Villarreal in the return leg of the Spanish Cup quarter-final. Barça duplicate score from first leg to knock out Villarreal 6–2 on aggregate, booking Barça a trip to the title-match where they'll face Athletic Club Bilbao. Jonathan Dos Santos managed the lone goal in the losing effort. Villarreal played the last 25 minutes with ten men as Tomás Pina was sent off after a vicious tackle on Neymar. And that wasn’t the only close-call for Barça, as Sergio Busquets left the game on a stretcher after what appeared to be an ugly ankle injury.

The two sides meet in El Madrigal in the second leg of their Spanish Cup semi-final on Wednesday evening (20h CET). The blaugranes have the upper hand in the tie following their 3-1 win in the first leg last month at Camp Nou. In addition, Barça have the advantage in their Champions League last 16 tie against Manchester City following their 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium. Their 3-1 away victory in the Spanish League at the weekend over Granada has allowed them to cut Real Madrid’s lead at the top of the league to just two points. Now, only Villarreal stand between them and a 36^th appearance in the Spanish Cup final. Coach Luis Enrique has his entire first team squad available with the exception of the injured Thomas Vermaelen.

German manufacturer Mercedes AMG Petronas have confirmed during the last Formula 1 tests at the Circuit de Catalunya that they are two steps ahead of the rest of the teams. Nico Rosberg notched on Friday the quickest time of the second week of tests, with a time of 1:22.792, with British driver Lewis Hamilton also dominating Saturday’s time trials. Williams seem to be the second-best team in the paddock according to these test days that have also confirmed problems with the McLaren. After two weeks of tests at the Circuit de Catalunya marked by the accident suffered by Fernando Alonso last week, the teams will now take a break until 13 March, when the first round of the F1 World Championship will be held at the Albert Park track in Melbourne (Australia).

Goals from Rakitic, Suárez and Messi produce an important win in Andalusia that put the pressure on Real Madrid, the Spanish League leaders. A workmanlike performance from Barça against relegation-threatened Granada resulted in the perfect response to last week’s setback at home to Málaga. A thoroughly deserved 3-1 win keeps the Catalans well in the hunt for the Liga title. The only downside to a fine performance from Barça was a yellow card for Neymar, which means he’ll be suspended against Rayo Vallecano.

Two goals from the Uruguayan have set things up perfectly for FC Barcelona for the Champions League last-16-tie’s second leg at the Camp Nou on March 18 by repeating last year’s feat of winning at the Etihad. Kun Agüero pulled one goal back for Manchester City. This Tuesday’s game ended 2-1, with Joe Hart giving Man City a glimmer of hope by saving a Leo Messi penalty in the final minute of injury time. However, a 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium, and playing such spectacular football, is nothing less than magnificent and the result leaves Barça with every right to feel confident about their chances of making it into the quarter finals.