It was launched in 2016 at the IES Goya in Zaragoza as a pilot test and in the course that is now ending, 191 athletes spread over four centers have taken part in it. The Goya has been joined over the years by the Pablo Serrano of Andorra, the Pyrenees of Jaca and already last September, the Sierra de San Quílez de Binéfar, in which the specialty is judo. The Sports Technification Classrooms, the project of the Government of Aragon with which it is intended to help promising young people to reconcile training and studies, continues to grow and take steps forward.
A good example of this is represented by the young people enrolled in Jaca. The ice hockey program started in the 2018-19 season currently has 37 students; curling, which started last year, with six; and the biathlon, the novelty, with nine. The evolution of young people is already evident. Iñaki Giménez, head of the Aragonese Federation of Winter Sports (FADI) within the modernization classrooms, highlights that nine of the fourteen hockey players in the U18 category have been called to participate this season in concentrations of the national teams. Of them, Nerea Giménez finally attended the prestigious ‘Four Nations’ tournament in Iceland and the Women’s World Cup and Jorge Mazón, Javier Sanz, Iván Garkusha and Daniel Bitrian won the silver medal in the men’s.
The Bitrian case is paradigmatic. “He came from in-line skating and is already the goalkeeper of the national team,” says Giménez, who highlights that “the modernization classrooms have allowed him to adapt very well to hockey, and he has also been playing in the CH Jaca senior team.” The qualitative leap has also been great for Julia Pilar Herrero and Noa Santoro. Both put on their skates after leaving the soccer ball. “Since there was no women’s soccer team in Jaca, I signed up with a friend for hockey, from there we entered the modernization classrooms and in them the evolution has been very fast”, highlights Herrero, who adds that “we train many hours and there is a high level”. Regarding making studies and sports compatible, he acknowledges that at first it is difficult, “but it is a matter of organization.”
In this course, the students and athletes have come to the institute from 8:30 to 11:40, when a bus picked them up to take them to the ice rink, and from 12:00 to 14:00 was the training time, to which must be added the work they do directly with their clubs. To enter the technification classrooms, sports results are important, but also academic ones. Admission requires passing a test and if the grades are not good afterwards, expulsion is a possibility. Garkusha, one of the internationals, has been in the program since its inception in Jaca: “I have progressed a lot, I have improved my technique and tactics more than if I had only been with my club.”
The track record in curling is very noteworthy with the bronze medal in the 2019 and 2020 absolute women’s Spanish Championships, and several fifth and fourth places in the last nationals. “When I started playing I knew almost nothing and now I have several titles”, explains Paula Oliván. The evolution of Elena Torralba has also been good. “The first year it was very noticeable, because we started training eight hours a week,” stands out. On her part, her sister Leyre defines her experience as “positive.” “Since I entered the modernization classroom I have experienced an important change, because being in contact with the ice all day is quite noticeable,” she adds. And like all professional athletes, some goals are set in his still long sports career, to reach the Olympic Games.
De Diego: “It is a job in the medium and long term”
The General Director of Sports of the Government of Aragon, Javier de Diego, considers that in the modernization classrooms “good fruits are being harvested”, although he emphasizes the idea that “The intention is not to obtain triumphs, but to prepare students for such a future to be, we do not work in the short term, but in the medium and long term”. The disciplines of rhythmic gymnastics, swimming, water polo, canoeing, tennis and table tennis are attached to the IES Goya in Zaragoza. In Andorra, the offer is athletics, badminiton, futsal, rhythmic gymnastics and rescue and first aid; in Jaca, ice hockey, curling and biathlon; and in Binéfar, judo.
Discomfort over a possible schedule change
The possibility of a change in the teaching schedule next year in Jaca’s modernization classrooms has generated opposition in the families of the students of the ice modalities (ice hockey and curling), since they consider that it will harm them. The president of the FADI, José Ricardo Abad, clarified that the modification comes from the Government of Aragon for all the classrooms of the Community, something that the fathers and mothers denied. For his part, the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, Felipe Faci, in the last plenary session of the Cortes and before a question from the PP, said that the schedule only depended on the school.
