The president of the RFEA and the athletes Raquel González and Mario García will analyze the options ahead of the World Cup in Budapest
MADRID, 25 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA), Raúl Chapado, and the athletes Raquel González and Mario García will analyze the national health of this sport and the options in the next World Cup in Budapest, at the Europa Press Sports Breakfasts, an event that will be held this Wednesday (10:00 am) at the Meeting Place Auditorium at Paseo de la Castellana, 81, in Madrid.
Raúl Chapado will talk about the present and future project of Spanish athletics ahead of the World Championships in Budapest, which will take place from August 19 to 27, and the furthest away from the Olympic Games in Paris, after the national representatives won 5 medals, three golds and two bronzes, in the recent European Games in Krakow (Poland).
Chapado will be accompanied by Raquel González, European runner-up in the 35-kilometer walk and Athlete of the Year for the RFEA in 2022, and Mario García, bronze in 1,500 meters in the European Championship, a few days after the meeting at the Vallehermoso stadium in Madrid on the World Athletics circuit and shortly before the Spanish Championship in Torrent (Valencia), from July 28 to 30.
This forum is the fourth of the fifteenth season of the ‘Sports Breakfasts’, sponsored by DAZN, State Lotteries and Betting, Repsol, UnicajaBanco and Vithas, after the first president of the Professional Women’s Soccer League (LPFF), Beatriz Álvarez, inaugurated it in December, and the subsequent ones by Luis Rubiales and Francisco Blázquez, presidents of the RFEF and the RFEBM, in February and April .
In the past financial year, Luis Rubiales; the president of the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE), Miguel Carballeda; that of the RFEBM, Francisco Blázquez; the one from LaLiga, Javier Tebas; and the women’s national soccer coach, Jorge Vilda, together with the internationals Alexia Putellas, twice chosen Ballon d’Or, Patri Guijarro and Irene Paredes.
The then president of the CSD, José Manuel Franco, also did so, presented by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta; the president of the International Triathlon Federation and member of the IOC, Marisol Casado, that of the Spanish Rowing Federation, Asunción Loriente, and the president of FUTPRO, Amanda Gutiérrez; and the director of the Spanish Commission for the Fight against Doping in Sport (CELAD), José Luis Terreros.
In previous courses, Jorge Vilda himself and the internationals Amanda Sampedro, Mariona Caldentey and Silvia Meseguer attended before traveling to the World Cup in France. Subsequently, under the title of ‘Motor, with ‘M’ for women’, the pilots Ana Carrasco, the first woman world champion in Supersport 300; Sara García, world champion of casualties; Tatiana Calderón, the first woman to participate in Formula 2, and Marta García, the only Spanish driver in the WSeries.
The president of the CPE, Miguel Carballeda; Teresa Perales, the Spanish athlete with the most medals (27) in the Paralympic Games and the 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports; the athlete Gerard Descarrega, Paralympic, world and European champion in 400 meters; and the cyclist Ricardo Ten, track and road world champion and bronze in Tokyo, offered an X-ray of Paralympic sport before the initial postponement of Tokyo 2020 due to the pandemic.
Under the title, ‘Repsol, 50 years of support and triumphs in motor sport’, Carlos Sainz, two-time world rally champion and three-time Dakar champion and 2019 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports; Jorge Martínez ‘Aspar’, quadruple motorcycling world champion and named ‘MotoGP Legend’; and Toni Bou, thirty-two times world trial champion, analyzed the causes that have made Spain a world power in motorcycling and motor racing.
The president of the Royal Spanish Winter Sports Federation (RFEDI), May Peus; the head of Women and Snow of the RFEDI, Paula Fernández-Ochoa, the rider Regino Hernández, bronze at the PyeongChang 2018 Games, and the Olympic skier Juan del Campo spoke about the legacy of Blanca Fernández-Ochoa.
And the general manager of the Movistar Team, Eusebio Unzué, former cyclists Pedro ‘Perico’ Delgado, Ángel Arroyo and Pablo Lastras and former road cycling world champion Alejandro Valverde reviewed the 40 years of success ‘From Reynolds to Movistar’.
MAIN ACTORS OF NATIONAL SPORTS
In previous campaigns, the main protagonists of national and international sports have paraded through the ‘Sports Breakfasts’, such as managers of clubs, sports organizations and entities, and athletes and former athletes from multiple disciplines.
Among them, the first president of the CSD, María José Rienda, her predecessors Jaime Lissavetzky, Albert Soler, José Ramón Lete and Miguel Cardenal, and the predecessors, Irene Lozano and José Manuel Franco; the presidents of LaLiga, Javier Tebas, of the RFEF, Luis Rubiales, of the AFE, David Aganzo, of the ACB, Antonio Martín, and of the FEB, Jorge Garbajosa.
Similarly, the President of the Board of Directors of Real Valladolid, Ronaldo Nazario; the one from Atlético de Madrid, Enrique Cerezo, and the now president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, and the former Real Madrid player Ramón Calderón, the former national soccer coach Vicente del Bosque and the former Liverpool and Real Madrid coach Rafa Benítez.
This agora of sport was occupied by presidents of national federations, the then president of the Sportsmen’s Association (AD) Cayetano Martínez de Irujo, the Olympic champions Lydia Valentín and Carolina Marín; the drivers Marc Márquez, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Maverick Viñales, Álex Crivillé, and the ’12+1′ times world champion Ángel Nieto; Marc Coma and Stephane Peterhansel, ‘Monsieur Dakar’; the swimmers Rafa Muñoz, Aschwin Wildeboer and Mireia Belmonte, the ‘sincro’ swimmers Ona Carbonell and Raquel Corral, and the golfer Miguel Ángel Jiménez.
The General Director of MAPFRE in the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), Pedro Campos, the skipper of the Spanish challenge, Xabi Fernández, and the crew members Támara Echegoyen, the first Spaniard in the history of the regatta, and Joan Vila, considered the best sailor in the world; and the world champion coaches José Vicente ‘Pepu’ Hernández, Paco Antequera and Javier Lozano, president of the National Futsal League (LNFS).
There was no shortage of ex-cyclists Miguel Indurain, five-time Tour champion; Alberto Contador, double winner of the Giro and Tour and three-time champion of La Vuelta; Joaquim ‘Purito’ Rodriguez; and the best Spanish athlete and basketball player of all time, Fermín Cacho and Amaya Valdemoro.
The former mayor of Madrid Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, and the former CEOs of the Madrid 2016 and Madrid 2020 Olympic bids, Mercedes Coghen and Víctor Sánchez, analyzed the options for the project for the Spanish capital to host the second Games in the country.
INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE: IOC, NBA AND Olympic Games
Representatives of international organizations were also at the ‘breakfasts’ such as the then vice president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Spanish Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs; former London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Ambassador Lord Sebastian Coe, current President of World Athletics, formerly the IAAF; the former Ambassador of the United Kingdom in Spain Giles Paxman; former Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) Managing Director Knut Frostad, and former ASO Deputy Managing Director Yann Le Moenner.
In addition, the Extraordinary Secretary of Security for Major Events of Brazil, Andrei Augusto Passos, the former Executive Director of the Euroleague, Jordi Bertomeu, the French Ambassador to Spain, Yves Saint-Geours, and the NBA Vice President for EMEA, Jesús Bueno, are on the list of speakers.