Human Tower Competition - It's a tradition that takes place in Terragona, Spain and it consist of building "castells" which are towers of people mounting one over the other. The aim of the competition is to build the most difficult human tower.
Yesterday, October 5th was the celebration of the 25th Human Tower Competition. Building castells is a tradition that has existed since the 18th century and it continues. It's based on becoming better together. When all people tower, they can reach higher. It's simple, but also a beautiful metaphor.
These groups of castells tend to be formed around different cities in Catalonia. It happened in 2010 that they were declared by the UNESCO as part of the "intangible cultural heritage," as the BBC made a cover of the news at the time.
This year, there were 6000 spectators to see the incredible show that these people did. The way in which the system works in this competition is very effectively explained in the way The Telegraph noted, they explained that it is a biannual event and each team has five opportunities.
Then, the final classification is made with the points gained by the best three towers formed by each team. And then, at the end of the event, the team that holds most points is the winner.
The quantity of teams that participated this year was forty. And an interesting detail about the members forming the tower is, "Once every member of the group has climbed into place the last one has to raise one hand with four fingers outstretched, symbolizing the Catalan flag."
Also, in order for a tower to be completed, it has to be loaded and unloaded. Loading it alone does not make a "win," to put it in a way. And the unloading part of it is a lot more difficult than the loading part. It's what's actually tricky and not so many teams achieve.
Now, to see the spectacle.
