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More than 2,500 elite athletes chose the Canary Islands for the purpose of preparing the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
The Canary Islands have been present since April on Eurosport, the official broadcaster of the Olympic Games in Europe, with the “Canary Islands. One goal, one destination. All year-round” campaign.
For years, the Canary Islands have been part of the training plan of the best athletes in the world. Cyclists, swimmers, athletes, sailors, beach volleyball players and triathletes, among athletes of other disciplines, are concentrated in the archipelago on a recurring basis with the objective of preparing for the great events of the year. The unique climatic and natural characteristics of the Islands, together with its first-class infrastructure, make the archipelago a paradise for professional sports training, an idyllic enclave of special relevance this 2024, the year of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris.
If for Tokyo 2020 the Canary Islands had already become a training base for up to fifty Olympic medalists, such as Primoz Roglic, Sifan Hassan, Marcell Jacobs, Sandra Sánchez, Adam Peaty, Kahena Kunze and Florent Manaudou, this year it is estimated that more than 2,500 elite athletes have chosen the archipelago and its facilities to implement training camps with an eye on the great competition of the season, a figure that represents 24% of the total number of athletes who will participate in the next Olympic Games in Paris.
Jessica de León, Minister of Tourism and Employment of the Government of the Canary Islands, states: “The unique climatic and natural characteristics of the archipelago, as well as the facilities recognized by the main world organizations, the sports recovery centers, as well as the excellent accommodation offer and high flight connectivity, make us the ideal destination for professional sports training.”
Unique Offer in Europe
Tenerife Top Training, Club La Santa or the facilities of the Playitas Resort or the Lanzarote Active Resort are the enclaves chosen by swimming stars. This is the case of the French national team, with names such as Maxime Grousset and Mélanie Henique; the British Olympic and Paralympic team, with Adam Peaty, considered the best breastroke swimmer in history, or Ellie Challis. Also the Swedish federation, with Olympic champion Sarah Sjöström; the Czech, with new revelation Barbora Seemanová; or the Swiss, with Noe Ponti, the bronze in Tokyo 2020 in the 100m butterfly. And of course, also the powerful Italian, who already chose the Islands to prepare the 2022 Europeans.
The person in charge of his training plan, the technician Claudio Rosetto, made it clear: “We train in the Canary Islands because it is a wonderful place due to the climate. When it’s usually very cold in Italy, here you can swim outdoors and sunbathe. The guys are much calmer and happier here.” Thomas Ceccon, one of the great assets for Paris 2024 in Italian swimming, said that “this is an incredible place, with its 50 and 25-meter pool, as well as a hydrodynamic channel not found in many places in the world,” referring to the Tenerife Top Training center, where the Olympic triathlon champion in Tokyo 2020, Kristian Blummenfelt, or teams such as the Czech modern pentathlon team or the Chinese beach volleyball team, have also trained; which like all participants of the well-known Queen & King of the Court championship, held in February on that same island, consider Tenerife the perfect place to prepare for the season.
The Antonio Domínguez Alfonso Olympic Stadium, in Tenerife, has been the home chosen since 2017 by Marcell Jacobs, winning Olympic gold in the 100m at Tokyo 2020, who says that “when it’s winter in Italy, I can’t wait to train in Tenerife.” The athletics federations of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Germany, with the media star Alica Schmidt on the team, have chosen La Palma Training Camp during the Olympic cycle of Paris 2024.
In the case of cycling, the Canary Islands have been a mandatory stop for the main peloton stars for years, such as Tadej Pogaçar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Demi Vollering, Chris Froome and Wout Van Aert.
If we talk about sailing sports, four of the ten Olympic disciplines (49er, 49er FX, iQFOil men and iQFOil women) celebrated their World Cup in Marina Rubicón, Lanzarote. All the Olympic classes and the best sailors of each one of them have established the waters between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura as their winter entry base facing Paris. Eight of them in Marina Rubicón and two in Corralejo. In the case of windsurfing, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura are benchmarks with the celebrations of the Gran Canaria Gloria Windsurf World Cup and the world championship of the discipline respectively, which year after year brings together the great world stars.
“Canary Islands. One goal, one destination. All year-round”
Tourism of the Canary Islands and the main sports platform in Europe, Eurosport (Warner Bros. Discovery), have collaborated in the production and joint launch of the “Canary Islands. One goal, one destination. All year-round” campaign, a multi-channel event framed in the context of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The campaign, released since April of this year throughout the platform’s ecosystem, promotes the archipelago as the perfect destination for professional, semi-professional athletes, and teams seeking ideal conditions to prepare for their competitions, headed by three sports legends: Alberto Contador, seven-time Grand Tour winner, the Hungarian Katinka Hosszú, three-time Olympic swimming champion and world record holder, and the British Iwan Thomas, world champion with Team GB and Olympic medalist.
Economic return of €160,000,000
The sports training segment brought together a total of 120,000 tourists in the Islands last year, including athletes and companions, and generated an estimated economic return of €160,000,000, in stays of 10.32 days on average as a whole, but up to 21-30 days in specific disciplines such as swimming or cycling. This is a figure to which we should add the economic impact of major sporting events included within the main international circuits that take place in the Islands, such as the UTMB World Series, Ironman, UCI events or the PWA World Tour, which, in many cases, serve many athletes as a cover letter for future sports stages.
“Professional sports tourism has a great strategic value for our destination, because it not only allows us to advance in the diversification of segments, but it’s also a more loyal visitor than the average, more concerned about sustainability, which allows us to create new business opportunities and implement events and infrastructures that enhance local sports talent,” explains De León.
It is a segment that, according to the Tourist Expenditure Survey, in addition to the Peninsula, Germany and the United Kingdom, representing 44.5% of the athletes who travel to train on the Islands, attracts athletes from markets such as the Nordic Countries (15.4%), Italy, (10%), Austria (7%), Switzerland or France (4% in both cases), and which has responsible consumption habits.
José Juan Lorenzo, Managing Director of Tourism of the Canary Islands, highlights the value of a segment that “in addition to increasing the average stay and rejuvenating the Canary Islands brand, allows the growth of the tourist value chain, as it benefits sectors such as physiotherapy, sports medicine or dietetics, among others.”
The Canary Islands, a Sports Training Paradise
The natural wealth of the Canary Islands and the diversity of terrains and landscapes make the archipelago, which has an average temperature of 23º in summer, 19º in winter, a paradise for professional training and international competitions. The connectivity of the Canary Islands also allows athletes to reach the archipelago from the main European cities in a matter of a few hours. In the Islands there are 1,500 kilometers of coastline bathed by nutrient-rich volcanic waters and 4,800 hours of light a year. |
