A Balearic team at the Club Spearfishing World Championship

The only Balearic team, BLAUSUB MANACOR, finished with a creditable 14th place after a bad start in the waters of Brazil during the 2024 World Spearfishing Championship.

From the 7th to the 10th of March in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) took place the World Championship for underwater fishing clubs, organized by the World Confederation of Underwater Activities (CMAS), the Paulista Association of Underwater Fishing (APPS) and the Iate Clube Rio de Janeiro (ICRJ), with the participation of 20 clubs from different parts of the world (Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus). 

BLAUSUB MANACOR has presented a team in the competition, led by the captain Sion Riera and the expedition leader Bernat Rosselló, with the participation of the local boatman Phillipe Coutinho and the fishermen Borja Ramírez, Àlex Abato and Albert Gómez (all three from Porto Cristo). 

With a bad place on the first day and a creditable seventh place on the second day, they completed the days of competition and the BLAUSUB team, the youngest in the championship, came in a worthy 14th place overall. 

The competition was held over two 6-hour days, the first day in the Tijucas Islands and the second day in the Marhicas Islands, close to Rio de Janeiro (approximately one hour's sailing). The sea conditions were terrible on the days of competition, apart from being very different from the Mediterranean, the waves were between 2 and 5 meters in the breakers, and the currents were between 2 and 5 knots, with poor visibility, constant temperature changes and a lot of variability in a short time. 

These extreme conditions favoured the final victory of the local team FLAMENGO (Lofredi, Sansao and Ambrosio), who won both races, followed in an extraordinary second place by the Italian team CICASUB (Ramaccioti and Bellami (two world champions) and in third place ACPS Brasil (Santiago, José Carlos, Aristides).