Jose Angel Iribar's commitment to Korrika

On March 14 this year's edition of Korrika, a relay run to promote the use of Basque, will set off from Irun and tour the Basque Country before finishing in Bayonne on March 24.

The run is divided up into kilometres with people, organisations and charities purchasing one kilometre from the organisers as a donation in support of the Basque language. At the end of each section, the race leader hands over a wooden baton adorned with an Ikurrina (Basque flag) to a new incumbent for the following kilometre.

Before reaching the coastal city in the Northern Basque Country, this year's event will also pass through San Mames on March 21 as part of Athletic Club's kilometre.

Athletic has been present in all 23 years of the run's existence and Basque-speaking goalkeeping legend Jose Angel Iribar has always played a major role in promoting the race. 

"It's an event that brings people together in favour of the Basque language," Iribar said about the run.

"That's something our language needs and will surely need in the future. A very beautiful, popular and Basque-speaking movement is created around Korrika and that is something that touches the heart."

On 29 November 1980, the first edition of Korrika, an idea that was initially impossible to carry out but materialised thanks to "some wonderful madmen", set off from Oñati with the intention of covering the entire Basque Country until arriving in Bilbao nine days later.

Overcoming all possible obstacles and difficulties, the popular race first passed through the facilities of Lezama, where the Athletic Club players took part, with Estanis Argote carrying the baton. The passage through Bizkaia, with a turnout of around 250,000 people according to the media of the time, opened the way for the crowd that welcomed Korrika in Bilbao.

Jose Angel Iribar was in charge of leading the steep stretch between the neighbourhoods of San Antón and Santutxu during the final kilometres. "It was like reaching Everest," he recalled, evoking the famous Martín Zabaleta-led expedition that reached the summit of the Himalayan mountain that same year.

Since then, El Txopo has taken part in the 22 subsequent editions of Korrika, putting on his bib and picking up the baton wherever he has been needed, something which he has done with great pleasure and dedication over the last four decades.