After days of uncertainty due to bad weather conditions and the state of the sea that forced the organization to wait an hour before the start of the event to decide whether or not the swimming segment would be held, the educational community was able to enjoy this Friday a new edition of the IES Yaiza Triathlon under the motto ‘go further’ and in posthumous tribute to one of the promoters of the Triathlon, Pauli Cabrera Ruiz. A brilliant and rainy sports day crowned this Friday Enea Cuchetti, from IES Yaiza, and Elizabeth Rosa, from Colegio Santa María de los Volcanes, as overall winners of the XXVI IES Yaiza Triathlon held in Puerto Calero and the surroundings of the educational center, the most demanding and multitudinous school sports event in the Archipelago, which was carried out thanks to the organization of IES Yaiza, Yaiza City Council and Cabildo de Lanzarote.
The event had the participation of more than one thousand two hundred and fifty students and teachers from twenty-three educational centers in Lanzarote, Tenerife, and Fuerteventura, who gathered on the southern coast to test their endurance and determination in the three segments of the event. The event, recently awarded the Viera y Clavijo Distinction, offered the attending public a top-level sporting spectacle, characterized by collective effort, personal improvement, and a strong spirit of solidarity among participants, values that define the essence of this educational and sporting event, considered one of the most relevant extracurricular activities in the Canary Islands, shining with its own light in the field of Canarian school sports.
From 08:30 hours, the facilities of IES Yaiza began to receive the participating centers in an atmosphere of expectation before their transfer to the beach, in Puerto Calero, where they faced the more than 450 meters of open water swimming that marked the first filter of a demanding test where stroke by stroke, the participants began to write their own history before facing the transition to dry land.
From there, a 1,200-meter liaison race led to the cycling segment, nine kilometers of changing terrain where the rain, the mud, and the toughness of the course forced them to measure every effort. The outcome, as always, awaited in the foot race: 3,775 final meters where there was no longer room for strategy, only for endurance.
In that context, the proper names of the day emerged. Enea Cucchetti, with authority and a time of 50:14, and Elizabeth Rosa, with 59:04, became the great individual protagonists in the under-20 category, unleashing the ovation of a dedicated audience.
In over 20 years old, the competitive pulse was led by Daniel Navarro Hernández, from IES Blas Cabrera (58:01), and Jonathan A. Duarte, from IES La Oliva (58:56), while in the First Cycle of ESO Adrián Sánchez, Echedey Cabrera, Abián Delgado and Iago Carrillo shone with their own light in the male category, confirming the promising generational relay.
At the trophy presentation ceremony, presided over by the mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda, and the Yaiza Sports councilor, Ángel Lago, and attended by various authorities from the political and educational spheres, an emotional tribute was paid to the memory of Pauli Cabrera Ruiz, in which it was made official that the center's pavilion will bear her name. The teacher was a promoter of opening the IES Yaiza Triathlon to the participation of other educational centers, which represented a leap in the magnitude of the event, coming to acquire the importance it currently has.
