Laia Olascoaga

Happy birthday to Spain’s sprinter Laia Olascoaga, a Bidasoa athlete from Irun who has been racing for her club since she was in the youth ranks.

Laia has run 11.93 over 100m, 24.64 over 200m with a following wind, and 7.74 over 60m indoors at San Sebastián. In April she was part of a 4x100m quartet that ran 46.86 at Barcelona. Her club career goes back a long way: as a fifteen-year-old she made the Spanish Under-16 Championships at Granollers, running 42.44 over 300m to finish tenth in the country after arriving on ten days without training — her club wrote her up afterwards as one of the athletes of its future, and it has been proved right.

She races for Bidasoa Atletiko Taldea, in Irun on the Gipuzkoan coast where the Bidasoa river meets the border. Basque club athletics is one of the most tightly knit systems in Spain, built around clubs that keep athletes from childhood through to senior level rather than trading them, and BAT is one of the good ones. She came up through the Gipuzkoa and Euskadi championship ladders before ever reaching a national start line.

The 4x100m is worth pausing on. Four sprinters, three changeovers, and every one of those handovers a chance to lose the race entirely — which is why relay legs go to the athletes a club trusts most, and why sprinters who race relays year after year tend to be the ones everybody wants in the squad. She is now based in Madrid, a long way from the Bidasoa, and still turning out in her club’s colours.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Laia! Que tengas mucha salud, mucha alegría y un año lleno de marcas nuevas — y muchos éxitos con los colores del Bidasoa. ¡A por todas! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇪🇸