The canoeing coordinator of the CN Portitxol, Omar Calzón, analyses the evolution of the paddlers

Canoeing is an Olympic sport that has outstanding paddlers from the Balearic Islands such as Marcus Cooper or Sete Benavides, who have achieved great success around the world and have even won more than one Olympic medal.

These are just some of the references that the young Balearic canoeists have, who start paddling their first strokes in the sailing clubs, striving every day to improve their technique and achieve their dream of climbing the podium. 

To find out more about the process followed by these future promises of Balearic canoeing, the coordinator of the canoeing section of the Club Nàutic Portitxol, Omar Calzón, visited the Passion for the Sea studios and explained, among other things, how an Asturian fell in love with Mallorca and ended up directing the Portitxol canoeing team. 

‘I was working in Madrid in the SAR, with the Air Force Rescue helicopter, and they brought us to Mallorca for a week to do some support work,’ explains Calzón. During that week, he flew twice a day, seeing the most incredible places on the island. ‘I fell in love and on the last day I said I wanted a place here, and I still do’, confesses the canoeist, as Omar comes from training in Madrid, where he was president of a club and also coordinator of the Canoe Federation of the community. 

Attracted by this love for Mallorca, Omar moved and began to combine his profession with his passion by helping out in the sports section of the Es Fortí military center. ‘I took on that first project and then Salvado Miró, Portitxol's coach at the time, contacted me because he needed help with the club. 

That was three years ago, a time in which Omar has been able to see how, under his orders, the young Portitxol paddlers have evolved physically and technically. ‘There is a lot of work behind, but in three years the boys have changed a lot’, Omar acknowledges, who remembers ‘when I arrived Theo Wolff barely knew how to stay in the canoe and now he competes at a national level’. 

To achieve this evolution, Omar always tries to set himself as an example. ‘Since I go with them to the competitions, I take advantage of it and I also compete to set a bit of an example’, Omar assures, who remembers a time when his paddle broke in a competition and he had to continue paddling with a spoon. ‘That's how they see that even though things are really bad, you don't have to stop in the middle of a regatta’, he says. 

In addition, the Club Nàutic Portitxol has made a very large investment in terms of refurbishment of the club's facilities, something that according to the coordinator of the canoeing section ‘has a positive effect on both the sailing and canoeing teams’. 

So far, the season ‘has lights and shadows’ confesses Omar, as the young paddlers are getting very good results in the vast majority of local and regional competitions and are laying the foundations for next season to be at the top of the Balearic Cup.