Bari, 82 students arriving from all over Italy for the final of the Spanish Olympics.

It will take place in Bari, on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th May, in the spaces of the Dicunt association – Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos (in piazza Umberto 54), in collaboration with the Department of Culture of Bari, the final of the fifth edition of the Spanish Olympics. An edition that saw at the starting line more than a thousand students from lower and upper secondary schools from various Italian regions, from Veneto to Calabria.

82 students from 20 different schools obtained the pass to the final, selected during two rigorous sessions, based on grammar and oral expression tests.

The overall winners of the junior and senior categories will win a study trip to a prestigious Spanish language school for foreigners in Spain.

They will succeed the S.S. “Oxford Group” of Lecce and the IISS “Da Vinci – Majorana” of Mola di Bari in the event's register, who triumphed in the last edition respectively in the junior category (middle school) and in the senior category (secondary school).

The competition, organized by Dicunt, an international association of language, culture and research of Bari, in collaboration with the Italian-Spanish association Acis-Bari and the Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos of Bari, was born in 2019 to encourage the study of the Spanish language in lower secondary schools and enhance talents by rewarding excellence.

The patronage of the Instituto Cervantes of Madrid gives further prestige to the eventThe Scientific Committee that supervises the event is, in fact, led by the honorary president Miguel Marañón Ripoll (Instituto Cervantes de Madrid), and boasts among its members Patricia Fernández Martín (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Maria Antonella Sardelli (University of Foggia, President of Dicunt), Manuel Martí Sánchez (Universidad de Alcalá), Julia Sevilla Muñoz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Rafael Negrete-Portillo (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).

The grand final will not only decide the overall winners of the junior and senior categories, but also the winners of the seven categories into which the Olympics are divided, offering scholarships for Spanish courses at the Dicunt association and for Spanish language certification exams." Dele” and “Siele”, official exams of the Instituto Cervantes certification body.

The satisfaction expressed by Nicola D'Alessandro, representative of the Dicunt association: “We are very proud of the results achieved this year. The Spanish Olympics are increasingly becoming a central event in the school activities of the Secondary Schools of I and II degree and the level of participants is becoming higher every year. This year the participation was even greater and a grand final is expected with students from Veneto, Campania, Lazio, Campania and Calabria, as well as obviously from Puglia. A special thanks goes to the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Bari, in the person of Ines Pierucci, for her support in view of the grand final".

The Honorary Consul of Spain in Bari will also be present at the final, María Ángel Lobato Rodríguez, in office since last October, to wish the finalists good luck before the last test: “I am enthusiastic about this initiative – states the consul – which highlights the growing interest in the Spanish language and culture in Italy, even in the school context. I greatly appreciate the commitment of the Dicunt association in promoting the spread of the Spanish language and culture since its foundation".