Africa Triathlon

With just over a week until the 2014 Pontevedra ITU Duathlon World Championships, Pontevedra held the official presentation of this great event, which will bring together more than 1,400 athletes from more than thirty countries between 31st May and 1st June.

In attendance to the press conference was ITU President Marisol Casado; Pontevedra’s mayor, Miguel Fernández Anxo Lords; General Secretary for Sport, José Ramón Lete Lasa; Councillor for Sports, Agustín Fernández;  President of the Spanish Federation (FETRI), Jose Hidalgo and the President of the Galician Federation, Paco Villanueva.

Casado, thanked the mayor of Pontevedra for the “generosity that the city of Pontevedra always demonstrates to our sport” and noted the great moment that Spanish triathlon is enduring “both in terms of sporting results, as technical, organizational and managerial”.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Pontevedra referred to the economic impact these events have on the city and its neighboring municipalities: “All hotels in Pontevedra are full, as well as in the towns of Poyo and Sanxenxo. It is also quality tourism, with an average stay of five days, especially those who come from far away”.

He also highlighted the work of all those involved in the event, responsible for making it possible: “Workers of the IMD with the councilman at the helm, all municipal services as local police, civil defense, volunteers… Thanks to all of them this championship will have a successful organization”.

Miguel Fernández Lores Anxo ended his intervention by encouraging citizens to participate in the next World Duathlon Championships, saying, “Come watch the athletes during the races, and actively participating in side events like the farewell party and the Panorama orchestra”.

For his part, José Ramón Lete expressed confidence that “it will be the best World Championship ever held ” and referred to the spectacular moment of triathlon.

“In the Galician Sports Tecnficacion Center we have 23 athletes, eight in the tecnical group and another 15 in the brand new High Performance group, which are athletes like Fernando Alarza or Antonio Serrat”.

The president of the Spanish Triathlon Federation, José Hidalgo, emphasized the great success of the Spanish triathlon (referring to recent successes like those obtained last week in Yokohama) and recalled that “when we began to take the first steps in this project we set ourselves several goals: To achieve a record turnout, which has already been reached, and to make this is the World Championship for the athletes and we believe it will be so, due to all the detail that Pontevedra has brought in and that have not been seen anywhere else. So I am confident that this will be the best Duathlon World Championship event to be held so far”.

Meanwhile the Councillor for Sports of Pontevedra, reviewed the data surrounding this World Championship: “More than 1,400 athletes, 500 volunteers, the deployment of the Local Police, Civil Protection ... They are all necessary for this complex organization and take an important part in assuring it runs smoothly. We started several years ago with the European Cups, European Championships, Spanish Championships, and now the World Championship… I believe we can say that Pontevedra is amongst those European cities organizing high level events”.

Lastly, the president of the Galician Federation of Triathlon, Paco Villanueva, referred to the importance that these events have for the sport: “We use these Championships to continue to draw high-level athletes”.

So far this year the Federation has already met its objectives: “Increasing the number of licenses and qualifying athletes for the Olympic Youth Games to be held in August in China”.