Clara Basiana

Clara Basiana Cañellas (born 23 January 1991) is a Spanish former competitor in synchronized swimming from 2009 to 2016. She won a bronze medal in the team competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Cañellas retired in 2016, after Spain did not qualify for the Olympics.

Career
She won the following team and individual medals:

Junior

2007 CALELLA European Championships: silver medal TEAM and COMBO. 2008 ANGERS European Championships: silver medal TEAM and COMBO. 2009 GLOUCESTER European Championships: bronze medal TEAM and COMBO, silver medal DUET.

Senior

2009 ROME World Championships: gold medal COMBO. 2010 BUDAPEST European Championships: silver medal TEAM and COMBO. 2011 SHANGHAI World Championships: bronze medal TEAM TECH and TEAM FREE.

2012 LONDON Olympic Games: bronze medal TEAM. EINDHOVEN European Championships: gold medal TEAM and COMBO. 2013 BARCELONA World Championships: silver medal TEAM TECH, TEAM FREE and COMBO.

Post-career controversy
While serving as television commentator for TV3, the state broadcaster of Catalonia, for an Olympic qualifying event, Basiana said the Israeli team's presence in the competition "is another strategy for whitewash the genocide and violations of human rights that they're committing against the Palestinian people.... We've seen it repeatedly in Eurovision, and it’s as though the war crimes of the State of Israel are erased and we’d like to point this out to the viewers so as not to normalize it."

Basiana was praised by some for speaking about alleged Israeli human rights violations. However, others said that she improperly conflated politics and sport, and noted that imputing Israeli governmental policies to Israeli athletes was equivalent to associating Basiana, a former Spanish national team member, with abusive Spanish practices in Catalonia. Critics also observed that Basiana gave no comment on the human rights issues surrounding the second-place Belarusian team, even though the tournament occurred shortly after Belarus' high-profile hijacking of Ryanair Flight 4978. Daniel Sirera, former chairman of the People's Party in Catalonia, tweeted that Basiana had engaged in “unethical behavior by dragging politics into sports.” A letter was sent to the CEO of the Catalyunya Comunicacio conglomerate, which includes TV3, on behalf of US Senator Joe Lieberman and human-rights activist Natan Sharansky demanded disciplinary action against Basiana. Laura Baladas, Ombudswoman of the Catalonia public broadcasting authority Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals said that Basiana had violated its standards and that her comments "cannot be justified," offered a formal apology, and said that measures had been taken by the management of Televisió de Catalunya to avoid offensive remarks going forward.