Sagunto's 10th triathlon draws 528 athletes to Almardà beach
Morvedre Triatlón organised the 10th edition of its triathlon on Sunday 6 September at Almardà beach, with 528 participants, the regional championship and a Club League round.
Ten years after its first outing, Morvedre Triatlón can boast of a firmly established event: 528 athletes lined up on Sunday 6 September at Almardà for the tenth edition of its triathlon, which combined the regional title with a round of the Valencian Community's Club League.
On paper, the Sagunto fixture has one feature that sets it apart from the rest of the league calendar: it is the only Club League round that requires competitors to complete the full Olympic distance — a mile and a half of swimming, forty kilometres on the bike and ten kilometres of running — which in practice makes it one of the physically toughest fixtures on the entire regional circuit. The race also features on the official calendar of the Valencian Triathlon Federation, institutional backing that adds extra weight to the fixture within the regional circuit.
Once again, the chosen setting was Almardà beach: a pebbly stretch of coastline almost two kilometres long within Sagunto municipality (Sagunto, coastal district), with dunes of notable ecological value to the west that give the course an unusual scenic backdrop for this kind of event.
With sunshine on their side and temperatures close to 30 degrees, large numbers of spectators gathered at various points along the course to cheer the athletes on. The men's overall win went to Miguel Risco Bermejo of C.E.A. Bétera, while the women's title went to his clubmate Marina Camps Mansilla — a double victory that kept the overall win in the hands of the same Valencian club.
On home turf, the host club also had reason to celebrate: Morvedre Triatlón closed the day in fifth place in the men's Second Division of the Club League, a result its officials say is especially satisfying given it coincides with the event's round-number anniversary.
Beyond the rankings, the club wanted to put on record its thanks to Almardà: it is local residents who, year after year, put up with the traffic cuts and mobility restrictions needed for the race to run safely, a gesture of tolerance that, organisers say, partly explains the triathlon's good standing among local people.
Running this tenth edition involved, among others, Sagunto City Council, its Tourism Department, the Local Police, the Citizen Assistance Service, and the Civil Protection units of Algímia and Alborache. On the logistics side, businesses and groups such as Pavasal, Clínica Dental Revert and the Almardà Viva association also chipped in, alongside the club's regular sponsors: Caixa Popular, Saggas and Fonex Centro Terapéutico.
Olympic-distance rounds are scarce within the Valencian Club League calendar, which gives this fixture a distinct weight within the regional circuit. For a small coastal community like Almardà, part of the Camp de Morvedre district, hosting an event of this scale every September also means a short-term bump in activity for local bars, shops and services over the competition weekend.
With ten editions now behind it, the organising club considers the race to have long outgrown its purely local roots: it now draws athletes and clubs from across the Valencian Community, and organisers are already working to raise its profile further ahead of future editions. After a decade on the calendar, the organising club has also become a reference name for triathlon in Sagunto and the Camp de Morvedre district, with the race doubling as a showcase for the district, combining sporting competition with tourism promotion for the municipality among athletes, companions and fans arriving from elsewhere. The event itself had already been previewed three days earlier by elperiodic.com, a sign of the regular media attention the race receives from local outlets in the district. For the wider Camp de Morvedre district, events like this one broaden the sporting profile of the Sagunto coastline beyond football or basketball, the disciplines that usually draw most local media attention, and help diversify the district's calendar of sporting events throughout the year. According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional background from Wikipedia on Almardà beach.