The Chief Executive, Pedro Sánchez, will preside this Thursday at the delivery ceremony of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Sports Merit to former basketball player Pau Gasol.
The event will be held at the Moncloa Complex and will also be attended by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta. The award is motivated, among other reasons, for having distinguished Gasol in a "more than notable, exceptional and repeated manner in sports practice, for having carried out an extraordinary service to the world of sports and physical education, and for giving prestige to the name and reputation of Spain acting as an ambassador in the field of sport with a trajectory of special exemplary character and international recognition”.
Pau Gasol was born in Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona) in 1980. He played 18 seasons in the NBA, where he won two championship rings, and played six NBA All Stars. With a height of 2.13 meters, he occupied the position of power forward.
With the Spanish team, he won two basketball World Cups, in 2006 and 2019, and participated in five Olympic Games, being twice Olympic runner-up (Beijing 2008 and London 2012).
In addition, he has been a UNESCO ambassador since 2003 and founder, together with his brother Marc, of the Gasol Foundation, which collaborates in promoting health and promoting healthy habits, especially to prevent and combat childhood obesity. Likewise, Gasol has been significant in defense of equality in sports.
He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports (2015), the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit (2007) and the Don Felipe de Borbón National Sports Award (2001).
On the other hand, King Felipe VI received in audience the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the German Thomas Bach, who traveled to Spain together with the Olympic Refuge Commission to sign a memorandum of collaboration with the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE ) and the Ministry of Integration, Social Security and Migration.
This audience was also attended by the president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco, the adviser to the president of the IOC Pere Miró, the vice president of the IOC Juan Antonio Samaranch and the other two Spanish members of the organization, Pau Gasol and Marisol Casado.
