Statement from José Hidalgo, for the suspension of the Spanish Duathlon and Triathlon Championships

Joseph Hidalgo, President of the Spanish Triathlon Federation has issued a statement after the suspension of the Spanish Duathlon and Cros Triathlon Championships in Almazan.

In this statement, explain what happened

NOW, MORE THAN EVER, IT IS NECESSARY TO BET ON SPORT.

Unfortunately, contrary to what our desire would have been, we have been forced to suspend the Duathlon and Cros Triathlon Championships that were going to be held this weekend in Almazan.

Despite having a safety plan and health protocol that offered more than what was requested, after the last meeting with local, regional and provincial authorities, they opted for the easiest and least complicated route, but also the worst for the sport: stop competitions.

The arguments fenced to stop the sport were so little concrete that could be used to cancel any other type of social activity.

Regarding the organization of competitions, before the pandemic we had a protocol (and only one), and now, when the union is most needed to get ahead, we find 19 different protocols, to which we must add dlocal and provincial legislation, with different interpretations for the same sport.

It seems clear that this is how complicated it is to be able to work professionally and safely: we must be able to bring order, common sense and unify a regulation that allows us to start sport with the same guarantees for all throughout the national territory.

To think that sport is "simply" a physical activity is not being able to see the benefit that it can generate, which goes beyond a matter of physical and mental health, and is, above all, an enormous economic, health and of social cohesion.

Give up the organization of sports eventss, when these scrupulously comply with health protocols, it also means renouncing a important economic injection for the city where the test takes place: hotels, hostelry, , best before date… All of this is what a Spain Championship.

If what we really want is to get ahead and recover as soon as possible from the crisis that has plagued us, neglecting tools as powerful as sport is not a bet on self-improvement, but on immobility, and a mistaken form of "protectionism".

If something has an athlete, it is discipline, knowing how to follow rules, exemplary behavior and very socially committed people; forget these values and try to get into the same bag of unsupportive behavior that we have seen these days around popular parties or nightlife it is not knowing what sport is, nor knowing those who practice it, athletes.

Sport (according to a recent study carried out by Deloitte at the request of ADESP) moves a volume of 12.000 million euros a year and has already lost 4.600 million at this time (eliminating the income derived from professional football).

This 2020 it is expected that overall losses amount to more than 38%, while the income of athletes will fall by 31% (here it is important to remember that the majority of athletes are far from the millionaire figures that are often heard in relation to a few names or to a certain sport).

These "losses" are not just numbers, they are not just numbers: we are talking about people, of athletes who are rethinking to leave the activity they love, given the impossibility of continuing to live from their work; coaches and monitors who will not be able to continue working on training new athletes; clubs that will not be able to maintain their squads and structures, nor provide services to their athletes; Autonomous sports federations that will go bankrupt when losing athletes who federate due to the drastic reduction of competitions ...

All this important ecosystem on which the base of Spanish sport is based is now in danger, and is on the way to economic bankruptcy and, therefore, towards its disappearance, if it is not definitively understood that sport is also an economic structure that gives jobs to many families.

We have been told that this time, it is not possible to carry out the Spanish Duathlon and Triathlon Cros Championships.

The easy thing would be not to complicate ourselves and wait for all this to happen, to stand idly by as long as it takes, but what neither the Spanish Triathlon nor the national sport have is time.

It has to be here and now when the sport starts, because waiting is the same as sentencing him to unnecessary agony.

And to a proposal of action they say "no", we will present another, and another, and those that are necessary to give us the "yes" that sport so badly needs.

Sport must be able to start as other sectors have done in our country, knowing that we will have to do it differently, in a new normality, with more security and different ways of working; But we cannot accept that the alternative is NOTHING and we must continue fighting so that sport is recognized as an effective reconstruction tool, so necessary in these times.

FOR ALL OF THIS WE WILL CONTINUE PERSISTING AND CLAIMING THE TRIATHLON.