The regional executive has decided to give Tenerife the responsibility of organizing the second edition of the archipelago's main sports fair
Tenerife's (and the islands in general) visit to Fitur went off without a hitch and with the usual dynamic of recent years, although some members of the Tenerife council arrived on the island in a cold sweat due to the responsibility they were given by the regional government to highlight one of its weakest points in terms of tourism.
The Department of Education, Vocational Training, Physical Activity and Sports, led by Poli Suárez, decided to entrust Tenerife with the organisation of the second edition of Expodeca, the archipelago's sports fair that debuted this year at Infecar and was a success.
The “cold sweats” do not correspond to Tenerife’s capacity to host fairs, since the Tenerife Fairgrounds host various similar events year after year, such as the characteristic Exposaldo; they correspond rather to the “lack of muscle” of the neighbouring island in terms of sport.
In Gran Canaria, the sporting sector has gone all in as a driving force for tourism: the island's two main teams (UD Las Palmas and Dreamland Gran Canaria) have government and elite support, up-to-date facilities, major projects, the capacity to host national and world events... the island's sporting cow never stops giving milk.
However, on the neighbouring island the situation is not at all similar. If we look at the purely sporting aspect, CB Gran Canaria is the only joy for the chicharreros, as they are fourth in the ACB and have qualified for this year's Copa del Rey (which is being played in Gran Canaria, by the way).
If we change the ball and go to football, things start to look worse, without taking into account the recent messes in the CD Tenerife board, the blue and white club is second to last in the Hypermotion League (tied on points with the bottom team); to this is added the "threat" from the island council, which assured a few months ago that If the club is relegated, the sponsorship they have with Tenerife Tourism could be withdrawn.
Although the comparisons are not so much related to the situation of the clubs (since despite having both island governments behind them, they are not reflections of the real situation of each island), but rather with the capacity of Gran Canaria and Tenerife to attract and host major sporting events.
While Gran Canaria faces a February in which it will host the Copa del Rey basketball tournament, the presentation of the winning project to refurbish the Gran Canaria Stadium, the EPIC Gran Canaria or the Copa del Rey inline hockey tournament (among other events), Tenerife faces a February in which the most important sporting competition on the island will be a tennis Challenger (which is a fifth-category tournament that does not attract tennis players from the ATP Top 100).
These facts are a response to the lack of effort on the part of the Tenerife institutions (which see no need to serve a market that Gran Canaria already monopolises at a national level and in a good part of Europe) and to outdated sports facilities that also do not have serious projects to renovate them.
This is why the opportunity to host Expodeca could be a push for the neighbouring island to get its act together in terms of sport or to confirm that everything related to the promotion of sport as a tourist and social driving force is in better hands if it is held in Gran Canaria.
As a curious note, the main athletes present at Fitur for the presentation of the second edition of Expodeca in Tenerife; Carla Suárez, Thais Henríquez, Marta Mangué and Dani Sarmiento, were all born in Gran Canaria.
