San Sebastián, 1870. With the support of the City Hall and the help of the gymnast José Peña, Marcelino Soroa Lasa (1848-1902) launched the first gymnasium in Euskal Herria, although at the top of the door he set up the Gymnastics Academy headed by the Archimedes brothers. The following year, on Andía Street, they prepared a circus to publicly show the work done in the gym. Marcelino Soroa himself, with gunpowder on his feet, had to do various exercises pending the double trapezium. But things did not happen as they should and Soroa suffered severe burns to the right thigh, which caused severe head injury.

However, that was not the reason why the activity was cut off and the gym closed, but the Carlist War. Soroa went to Ziburu in 1872 and did not return in five years. Then, in 1877, under the direction of Soroa, the new municipal gym was prepared in the basement of the schools of Peñaflorida Street. I prepared well. As the writer and painter Francisco López Alén wrote in Eroski Vascongada: “The Academy looked shiny; the set of exercise trains consisted of simple and double iron or wood trapeziums, coarse ropes, equal or with knots, rings of different practices, land or boat stairs, game of pica, games of pulleys, rings of all kinds, collection of sticks, power gums, iron and wood bars, iron and wood bars, horizontal rod bars, etc.”

In 1878 he founded the La Infantil association of the Gym to promote physical practice since childhood. The City Hall also collaborated in this work and through a resolution that was to be in force for several years, it was determined that gymnastics would be mandatory for all boys and girls in the city's public schools.

When the camp La Voz de Guipúzcoa died, he wrote about the children's gym: “All the guys in San Sebastian went through there and, among those guys who are men today, we have sailors, doctors, military, engineers, lawyers, artists, priests, etc.” The article was not entirely correct, as the City Council resolution included both boys and girls. And although in the adult gym most are men, the saved lists also include women's names: María de Aizpurua, Carmen Besné, Rufina Soroa, Paquita and Teresita Rodríguez, Luisa Uranga.

Marcelino Soroa studied law in Valladolid and is known for being the author of the first theatrical play entirely in Basque (Anton Kaiku, 1878). But gymnastics remained their livelihood.