The XVII Christmas Gymnastics Festival hopes to have more than 3,000 spectators this year. This event, which has been held uninterruptedly for 17 years, will take place next Tuesday, the 20th, at the Arrecife Municipal Sports Hall, in the Argana Alta neighborhood.
The Festival will begin at 8:00 p.m. and will feature the participation of around 700 athletes belonging to eight gymnastics clubs, associations or educational centers on the island. Specifically, the participating entities will be the Tenesa Sol Rhythmic Gymnastics Club; the Arenas Internacional School; the Ayatima Rhythmic Gymnastics Club; the CEIP Capellanía del Yágabo; the IES Manrique; the Santa María de los Volcanes Sports Club in Nazaret; the Titogan Gymnastics Club; and the Lanzarote Island Gymnastics Center.
This year the Christmas Gymnastics Festival has a poster that has been created by one of the participants in the meeting, Natalia Cabrera Cabrera. The young woman, only 9 years old and a member of the Tenesa Sol Rhythmic Gymnastics Club, was the winner of the contest convened by the Island Sports Service, among the children participating in the Festival, to create the image of the 2011 edition poster.
On the same day, December 20, the traditional Solidarity Goal will take place, in which gifts and toys are collected that the children of Lanzarote, and their parents, donate for those other children who can have a toy for Christmas. The Solidarity Goal will take place in the same Arrecife Municipal Sports Hall, headquarters of the Festival, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. All those interested in collaborating in this cause are reminded that the toys must be new, brand new. Used toys will not be collected, as reported by the Cabildo.
Later, and thanks to the collaboration of the NGO Emerlan, which coordinates with the Social Services of the seven municipalities of the island, the toys are distributed among the most disadvantaged children of Lanzarote.
In the presentation of this festival, the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, pointed out that "these are two very important events, which have a special reception among the population of the island. We are confident that this year it will once again have an excellent popular response," he said.
For her part, the Councilor for Sports of the Cabildo, Migdalia Machín, recalled that the Christmas Festival is dedicated exclusively to gymnastics, in its rhythmic and artistic modalities, since other modalities such as dance or dancing have their space in the Lolina Curbelo Lanzarote Island Gymnastics Festival, which is also organized by the Cabildo and takes place in April.
