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Jonás García will seek his tenth victory in the adapted Sella teaming up with José Andrés Blanco

The “king” of the adapted Sella wants to climb back to the top of the podium and thus round off what would be his tenth victory in the prestigious river descent event. Maliayés Jonás García García –nine wins behind him and another two second places–, will fight on this occasion, after his absence last year, with the also disabled José Andrés Blanco Sánchez, “Pepe” –he has three other selling victories in his record. “We’re going for it. We’ll do everything possible,” said Jonás, the award-winning paddler from Club Piragüas Villaviciosa-El Gaitero.

The test, pioneer in our country in a sports modality, adapted canoeing, in which FEDEMA has been its promoter for the reference group, will be held tomorrow, Sunday, July 31, from 10:00 a.m., with a total of 160 paddlers in contention, of them, 64 athletes with disabilities. Everyone will do the Descent in the canoes specially designed for this purpose by the Asturian School of Canoeing, in K-2, with a disabled participant and his companion without it, in a completely inclusive event.

The paddlers will start, as is tradition, at the headquarters of the Asturian School of Canoeing, starting the non-competitive section, about 11 kilometers long, which will take all the participants to the revolt known as La Uña, to the height of Llordón, where a technical stop and supplies are made to give way to the official start of the competitive section, this 5,000 meters away, with the finish line banner located under the Feve bridge, in Lloviu (Ribadesella).

In addition to Jonás García and Pepe Blanco, the current winners of the sellera test, the Paralympic Eduardo Carrera and the Piloñés Vicente Llerandi Fernández (category A, groups minor injuries) and Byron Álvarez and Roberto Pérez (category B, has the presence of wheelchair users, especially spinal cord injuries).

The organization of this Adapted Sella Descent is carried out by the Federation of Sports for People with Physical Disabilities of the Principality of Asturias (FEDEMA), with the technical collaboration of the Asturian School of Canoeing, in addition to the sponsorship of Fundación ONCE, Fundación Cajastur , Ecopilas, Ambilap, General Directorate of Sports, Ministry of Social Rights and Welfare, Asturias Paraíso Natural, Poliortos, and the Parres and Ribadesella Town Councils.

One more edition, Firefighters of the Emergency Service of the Principality of Asturias (SEPA), joins the development and organization of the XXIX Descent, providing its services for the coverage of prevention and safety of the test. 70 troops will participate in the device, including firefighters and volunteers from the Civil Protection Groups of Piloña, Llanes, Mieres, Cabranes, Ribadesella and Cangas de Onís. They will be in charge of monitoring the points with some risk of the route.

This year 2022, the Special Mention of the Adapted Sella for entities and institutions goes to Fundación Also, which has participated in the event for twenty-one editions, as many as it has been established for years, and which provides the possibility of practicing sports to the group of people with disabilities, especially the younger ones.

For the second year and thanks to the sponsorship of Ecopilas, the “Valores del Sella Adaptado” Prize will be awarded, which rewards people who are ambassadors of all the positive values ​​associated with this test, and whose winner in the current 2022 exercise is the Paralympic athlete Asturian, José Andrés Blanco Sánchez.

José Andrés suffered an accident while practicing paragliding in the Llanes area, his great passion until then, led him to rethink his relationship with sport, assessing the possibilities of adapted sports practice in accordance with his injury.

After a year of rehabilitation, cycling began to occupy that space, and with a clear goal in mind: participation in the Paralympic Games. Not only would he achieve it in Sydney 2000, but he would also obtain for Spain the first medals in a Games in this sport, specifically one silver and one bronze, to which must be added a Paralympic diploma.

In adapted cycling, he treasures multiple national titles and medals in different international races, but his sports restlessness leads him to try his luck in wheelchair basketball, being a pillar of the Cosa Nuesa Sports Club, of which he has been its president since its constitution in 2002.

His passion for nature and facing major challenges led him to practice mountaineering, something unthinkable for anyone with his level of injury, but not impossible for Pepe, who works at the Asturian School of Canoeing. Although Everest resisted him in two attempts, he summited mythical mountains such as Mont Blanc, Elbrus or Kilimanjaro to name a few examples.

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