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A sports paper made from pain

On days like this it is very difficult to put together a sports newspaper. Worse, it's almost absurd. Sport was born for distraction, for harmony, for joy. It is the exaltation of the best physical and moral virtues of the species, in an attempt to break up the countless worries that stalk us every day. And usually it succeeds. It distracts us, it inspires us, it triggers our admiration for the innocent exploits of those civilian heroes and heroines that show us a way of overcoming. It is a world of good examples. There are also bad ones, yes, but they are the minority, and the contrast between them enhances even more the best of sport.

A police officer patrols on Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017.
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A police officer patrols on Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017.Carl CourtGetty Images

Sport news becomes relatively insignificant

But in the face of yesterday's events, all of that suddenly loses its meaning. How can you to continue to dissect the recent Clásico? How can you get excited about the imminent start to the Vuelta a España cycling? How can you maintain an interest in the new signing that may or may not arrive, in the game that is played, in those that they are going to play? How do you turn attention to the opening weeekend of LaLiga when the television screen throws such images at us, the trail of victims on the most beautiful and beloved walkway in Barcelona? Against all this, the contents of a sports newspaper seem to move from innocuous conversation topics to inopportune banality.

AS front cover, 18 August 2017, showing tributes from sport stars and clubs.
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AS front cover, 18 August 2017, showing tributes from sport stars and clubs.

We must continue, despite the hurt

But on goes this newspaper, in spite of everything. With it, our pain, we embrace the victims, their relatives, our wishes that the wounded get better and overcome, as much as possible, the horrible memory. We have put this newspaper together today feeling like we're swimming upstream, with an awareness that what we're doing has little meaning. But we felt it as our obligation, that the world must go on, that it will continue, and with it the sport, the most important of all the small things. I do not know if anyone will be in the mood to go into our content today, but it is there. We have created it as best we can, but saddled with pain.