Four reigns in the shadow

Cartagena sports live one of those sweet moments that are rarely repeated throughout history. Away from the media focus of Efesé, the water polo, table tennis, rugby and badminton teams of the municipality have lately been experiencing days of wine and roses between regional championships, titles of all kinds, category promotions and permanence. The Water Polo Carthago Club, the UCAM Cartagena Table Tennis, the CRU Cartagena and the Badminton Cartagena enjoy their particular reigns in the shade, without the sufficient attention that their achievements deserve for local sport.

The guys from CW Carthago are enjoying a well-deserved vacation, after celebrating the title of regional champions in the Palacio de Deportes pool. They are the kings of the Region for the second consecutive season. And they have achieved it by beating San Javier and Murcia, with the morbidity that the latter implies. Being champions allows you to choose two options. The club can play again the complicated phase of promotion to Second B, where a Murcian team has never played before, or play a Spanish championship among other regional champions

economically unfeasible

«We have chosen to go to the Spanish championship and we have requested that the Palace be the venue for the event, which could attract more than 300 athletes between May 20 and 22. We will receive an answer shortly. Our budget is around 50,000 euros and going up a category would require an injection of 20,000 euros more. It is economically unfeasible. And sportingly there are two teams far above the others, who are going to keep the only place. The championship will help us to play more matches and gain experience against other level rivals”, says Ángel Nieto, the technical director. The CW Carthago emerged in 2014, moves about a hundred players and has a presence in national championships and in the Murcian team.

Much less people but many more titles treasures the UCAM Cartagena Table Tennis. Last Friday they won the European Cup, the club’s 41st title. There are already 20 Leagues, 17 Queen’s Cups and 4 European Cups. The girls are trained by a legend of this sport, Jesús Cantero, from Cádiz. And one of its players is one of the best in the world: the Spanish Olympian María Xiao. No other team in the Region, of any modality, treasures so many trophies in the showcases.

Successes without heating or wifi

All this reign in table tennis, on the other hand, translates into a testimonial presence in the stands and the precariousness of the media. Until a few weeks ago, the Cuatro Santos pavilion in Barrio Peral, the club’s usual home, lacked heating and internet connection. These two are the minimum requirements demanded by high competition. And that they forced to make a brief move to the Los Narejos CAR until the problems were corrected.

These are also days of congratulations for the municipality’s rugby team. It is the Cartagena University Rugby Club, whose players still toast for the undeniable promotion to the Second Valencian Territorial. They achieved it in victory number sixteen in a row, beating Las Torres de Cotillas (19-16) in the La Asomada field. This is still a low-level competition for the CRU, which aims to climb categories in the Valencian community and increase the variety of its rivals.

In parallel, the senior men’s team also competes in the Murcian league. Here he became a new champion, defeating CUR Murcia in the derby (29-14). This regional championship gives Cartagena the right to fight for the biggest challenge of the season: promotion to the Honor Division B, the second category of Spanish rugby. The club, whose president is Carlos Hernández, has already between eyebrows and eyebrows that promotion phase against other regional champions.

To move up in category, CRU Cartagena needs to overcome three qualifying rounds. The first is on April 23 or 24, with the second leg on May 30 or 1. The bad fortune is that the rival is Rugby Vilafranca, the Catalan champion and the toughest opponent of all. The people of Cartagena, who already have 220 players among their prolific bases, do not give up anything.

To train on stage

The municipality’s badminton team is among the twenty best in Spain. It is Badminton Cartagena, which has achieved permanence in the third category of this sport: the First National B. The club, which has 120 players and 50 national licenses, travels to various parts of the country representing the city. On the other hand, it lacks a fixed facility to train and some of its schools do it on the stage of the Central pavilion. This sport managed to attract 250 people from all over the world to the Palace.