Lifeguards of the Spanish youth team during the opening parade of the previous European Championships, held in 2019 in Riccione (Italy)./Javier Sánchez-RFESS
More than 400 people from 15 countries will make Castellón de la Plana the centre of world lifesaving for a week
Twenty-six teams, fifteen senior teams and eleven youth, will compete in the European Championships by Nations from 12 to 18 Septembe
More than four hundred people from fifteen countries will gather in Castellón de la Plana between 12 and 18 September for the Lifesaving European Youth and Open Championship by Nations, which will turn this capital of the Valencian Community into the world centre of this sport, being the first competition by national teams after the declaration of the pandemic and the only one before the 2022 World Championships.
The figure for participation and the mobilisation of people for more than a week in Castellón exceeds by 25 percent the forecasts made by the organisers when the Championship was presented on 28 June in the Patio de las Aulas of the Provincial Council.
The competition will reach the entire planet through the television signal that the Royal Spanish Lifesaving Federation will distribute on its OTT, so it can be followed on television, computers and mobile devices from anywhere in the world. It is already available on all operating systems and can be located through its name, rfessmedia, and rfessmedia.tv in the web environment.
This will be the first time that a lifesaving competition will be broadcast live on its own platform and not by third parties or through a social network, which guarantees that the signal will arrive in high definition and that the entire Championship will be broadcast, not just part of it or the finals.
237 registered athletes of 15 countries
In total, between the open and youth categories, there are 237 registered athletes, 123 male and 114 female, joined by the respective technical teams, the delegations, where appropriate, of their national federations, from a total of fifteen countries, and more than seventy people deployed by the Spanish and Valencian Community federations for the organisation of the event.
Furthermore, it is necessary to add the induced tourism that is generated during the days before, after and during the competition itself, which is an element of added value to the promotion of Castellón and the Valencian Community as a safe tourist destination, one of the arguments that are highlighted on the Championship website, www.lec21.rfess.es.
Fifteen nations are represented in the open competition: Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Netherlands, Sweden and Albania, all of which will compete in the male’s and female’s categories, while the Portuguese and Albanians do not have teams in the women’s category.
These same two countries, together with Hungary and the Netherlands, will not be present in the youth competition, where all but Greece, who will not be present with a women’s team, will be represented in both the male’s and female’s categories.
The opening ceremony of the Championships will take place on Sunday 12 September at the Castellón Municipal Olympic Swimming Pool and the closing ceremony on Saturday 18 September at the Gurugú Beach. 2021/9/1
