Santiago Güell i López: The First Catalan of IOC

To understand the circumstances of the first Catalan member of the International Olympic Committee over more than three decades, who re-established the Spanish Olympic Committee and promoted the staging of the Mediterranean Games in Barcelona in 1955, we must begin by looking at the family in which she was born and grew up.

A family, Güell y López, which serves as an outstanding representation of the bourgeoisie who instigated the industrial development seen from the 19th century onwards, giving great economic, social and cultural momentum to the Catalan life of the era.