Nearly two hundred paddlers participated in the championship organised by the Club de Mar Mallorca, which finished third in the team competition.

A big day for sea kayaking in the Balearic Islands was experienced on the 27th of May at the Costa den Blanes beach. The Balearic Championship in this specialty took place there, jointly organised by the Club de Mar Mallorca and the Balearic Canoeing Federation.

Nearly two hundred athletes from 14 clubs from Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza competed in the event, which determined the new regional champions in different categories.

In the end, the team victory went to the RCN Palma, with the second place taken by Es Nàutic de Sant Antoni from Ibiza, while the Club de Mar Mallorca secured the third spot on the podium.

Specifically, our athletes won a total of 17 medals in the regional championship, seven of them gold, seven silver and three bronze. Special mention goes to Tommaso Rolando’s third place in Infantil B category, the runner-up position achieved by the Cadet K2 team of Germán de Abasolo and Víctor Sánchez, and the brilliant victory of Aina Palmer in the individual Cadet competition as well.

The overall victory in the Senior category went to Borja García and Alicia Heredia, both from RCN Palma. In Sub23 category, Pep Cifre from Andratx, reigning  Junior Spanish  champion, emerged victorious in his particular duel agaisnt Lluc Matas. The Cadet race was won by Lázaro López (Es Nàutic de Sant Antoni) and our athlete Aina Palmer.

Among the youngest participants, the new Balearic champions in the Infantil A are Joan Ginard (RCN Palma) and Margalida Cirer (CV Port d’Andratx). On the other hand, the battle between the world champion and runner-up in the Veterans category Donatella Monteleone and Elena García Horrach, both paddlers from the Club de Mar, was decided this time in favor of García Horrach by just 14 seconds.

The competition began with the athletes gathering on the beach. Gradually, they boarded their kayaks to position themselves at the starting line for their respective categories. The organisation established two separate starts, the first one for the younger participants and the second one for the remaining categories.

On this occasion, a technical innovation was introduced for the first time: a rolling start, which, according to the federation´s experts, was being implemented  for the first time it in sea kayaking in Spain. This method, which aims to create a more dynamic and fair start without false starts, involves alerting the kayaks with a preliminary horn and moving the committee’s inflatables a few metres forward until a second signal initiates the race. Anyone who jumps the gun incurs a penalty.

On one hand, the children completed a distance of three thousand metres with a circuit that starting and finishing on the beach of Punta Negra. The remaining categories competed on an eight-kilometre circuit, starting in the water at Costa d’en Blanes beach. They navigated southwest to the islet of Na Porrassa and returned to the starting point, where the finish line was located.