Less than 10 days for the Duathlon World Championship - Pontevedra 2014

Less than ten days before the celebration of the 2014 Pontevedra Duathlon World Championship, the official presentation of this great event was held yesterday.

Pontevedra will host the next 31 days in May and 1 in June, the Duathlon World Championship in which more 1.400 athletes will participate, which will mean a new record of participation in a Duathlon World Championship.

In the appearance before the press were the mayor of Pontevedra, Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores; the general secretary for Sport, José Ramón Lete Lasa; Councilor for Sports, Agustín Fernández; the President of the International Triathlon Union (ITU), Marisol Casado; the president of the Spanish Federation (FETRI), José Hidalgo and the president of the Galician Federation, Paco Villanueva.

The president of the ITU, Marisol Married, thanked the Mayor of Pontevedra for his "Generosity that the City of Pontevedra always demonstrates with our sport" and highlighted the magnificent moment of the Spanish triathlon "Both at a sporting, technical, organizational or managerial level".

In turn, the Mayor of Pontevedra He referred to the economic impact that this type of events has on the city and the bordering municipalities: "All hotels in Pontevedra are full, as are those in Poio and Sanxenxo. It is also a quality tourism and an average stay of five days, especially for those who come from far ". At the same time, he also wanted to highlight in a special way the work of all those who are making this World Cup possible: "The workers of the IMD with the councilman at the head, all municipal services such as Local Police, Civil Protection, volunteering ... Thanks to all of them it will be possible for the World Cup to be an organizational success". Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores ended up encouraging the public to participate in the next Duathlon World Championship, "Watching the athletes during the tests, and participating actively in the parallel events (such as the farewell party, with the Panorama orchestra)".

For its part, José Ramón Lete He expressed his confidence that "It will be the best World Championship ever held" and made reference to the spectacular moment of the triathlon and to the bet that from the Xunta de Galicia is made by this sport: "At the Galician Center for Sports Technification we have 23 athletes, 8 in the modernization group and 15 in the recently launched High Performance group, in which there are athletes such as Fernando Alarza o Antonio Serrat".

The president of the Spanish Triathlon Federation, José HidalgoHe emphasized the great moment that the Spanish triathlon is going through (referring to the last successes obtained last weekend in Yokohama) and recalled that "When we began to take the first steps in this project we set ourselves several objectives: To achieve a record of participation, which is already achieved, and to make this the World Championships for athletes and we believe that it will be like this, for all details provided by Pontevedra and that are not made anywhere else. That's why I am sure that it will be the best World Championship of events so far ".

Additionally the Councilor for Sports of Pontevedra He reviewed the figures of this World Cup: "More than 1.400 athletes, 500 volunteers, the deployment of the Local Police, Civil Protection ... All of them are necessary for this complex organization to work perfectly. We started several years ago with the European Cups, the European Championships, Spain, now the World Cup ... I think we can say that Pontevedra is in the circuit of European cities that organizes high level events ".

Finally, the president of the Galician Triathlon Federation, Paco Villanueva, referred to the importance that this type of events has for the sport: "We use this type of tests to continue taking high level athletes". In this way, this year the Federation has already met its objectives: "Overcome the number of licenses and achieve the classification of Galician athletes for the Youth Games, which will be held in August in China. Spain managed to classify three athletes of which two (Carmen Gómez, in triathlon and Aroa Freije, in pentathlon) are Galician ".

In addition to the World Cup in Pontevedra there will be a significant presence of Galicians, such as Gustavo Rodríguez (who will replace Gómez Noya), Susana Rodríguez and Antonio Serrat.