Volta a Catalunya will collaborate with Jordi Badia Perea in a solidarity action for the benefit of the Althaia Foundation and the fight against stroke
February 25 th 2022 - 10:30
Barcelona (25-02-2022).- The Volta Ciclista a Catalunya will collaborate this 2022 with a solidarity action linked to the race with the current mayor of Calaf, Jordi Badia Perea. Together with the Althaia Foundation in Manresa, Badia will ride a large part of the route of this year's Volta as part of a solidarity project to raise awareness and funds in the fight against stroke.
Jordi Badia Perea (Sabadell, 2 February 1963) is a journalist and the current mayor of Calaf, after being communications director of FC Barcelona and Martorell City Council, among others. After suffering a stroke in February 2014, long-distance sport and especially cycling have been key in his recovery, participating in several ultra-distance cycling events and brevets in recent years.
In this 2022 edition of the race, Badia and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya will collaborate in a solidarity action to benefit Althaia, the foundation behind the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Manresa. With the aim of raising awareness about stroke and raising funds for research and treatment, as well as encouraging others who have gone through the same experience to recover, Badia will ride a large part of the route on which the world's best cyclists will compete in this year's Volta, which will be held between 21 and 27 March.
An important sporting challenge framed in a year that will take Badia to compete in July in the North Cape 4000, a long-distance cycling race covering the 3,800 kilometres that separate the North of Italy and the North Cape, in Norway. A project that pursues the same objectives in the fight against stroke, sponsored by the mountain runner and former Catalan MP Núria Picas.
"For the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, it is always an honour to collaborate with solidarity actions such as this sporting challenge, in which we offer the loudspeaker of a worldwide reference event such as the Volta to join forces in the fight against stroke", says Rubèn Peris, president of Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
"This solidarity challenge will allow us to make a great step forward to give visibility to a disease such as stroke and raise public awareness, but above all it will allow us to do research and improve the comprehensive and intensive care that patients need to promote their recovery and prevent aftereffects. Having the complicity of the Volta in this project is very valuable," explains Antònia Raich, Althaia's Director of Communication and Participation.
For his part, the protagonist of the challenge Jordi Badia Perea says: "I only have words of thanks for the Volta, which has been open to collaborate with the Althaia Foundation and with me in the solidarity project #guanyemlictus. 1 in 4 people will suffer a stroke in their lifetime. I am an example. We want to raise awareness of this serious disease and raise funds for research and treatment of patients, and the Volta is an unbeatable loudspeaker".
The Volta Ciclista a Catalunya celebrates its 101st edition in 2022, consolidated in the elite of world cycling as the third oldest stage race in the world after the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. This year's route starts in Sant Feliu de Guíxols and finishes in Barcelona after seven demanding stages on a level with the best cyclists in the world.
