The Balboa brothers dropped from the head of the race after passing La Requexada, after 40 minutes of competition. In Lloviu, with the embellished river train stopped on the iron bridge, the French passed by. Calf and Castañón then began to lose steam. Everything was yet to be decided with four posh binomials looking for the most desired victory under the Riosellano bridge.
At Boticaria Island, less than a kilometer from the finish line, the strategy led each boat to seek a different exit route. Walter Bouzán and Álvaro Fernández Fiuza took the lead for a moment, but an error, confessed after the test by the protagonists, left space for the French Urban and Candy, great sprinters, who overtook them and were able to achieve enough of an advantage so that, once hour, 7 minutes and 45 seconds after the start, they were crowned under the Ribadesella bridge. They left Bouzán and Fiuza with honey on their lips, the champions from 2010 to 2017 and protagonists for their resounding return as a team. Julio Martínez and Emilio Llamado, for their part, snatched third place from Llorens and Plaza on the final stroke: three tenths of a second ahead allowed them to climb to the third place on the podium.
The local triumph came in the men’s K-1 with the victory of Javier López, from the El Sella Canoeing Club. The one from Soto del Barco, after a good start, managed to impose his quality and beat the top favorite, the Danish three-time world champion and Sella champion in 2019 Mads Pedersen, who lost his rope in the Devil’s tail. Roberto Gerinder, also from the El Sella Canoeing Club, took third place.
In the women’s category, Eva Barrios and Amaia Osaba achieved their third consecutive victory, Osaba’s sixth, in a competition that once again forced them to dedicate a good part of the race to overtaking and dodging laggards from other categories. Barrios and Osaba overtook more than 180 boats to achieve their victory. Tania Fernández and Tania Álvarez, also from the Spanish national team, were second and the Hungarians Renata Csay and Csofia Cellai-Voros, third. Irene Gana, a regular Basque vacationer in Ribadesella, was the winner in K-1.
After two years of hiatus due to the pandemic, Sella did not disappoint and with the victory of the French Urban and Candy, it once again highlights its claim and international potential. The Sella, created in 1929 by Dionisio de la Huerta as a canoe excursion, is claimed almost a century later as one of the most important marathon races in the world. Its waters are tradition to shovels.
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An exciting and long sprint yesterday culminated the Sella International Descent, which was returning after two years of hiatus due to the pandemic. The excitement for the return of the most emblematic sporting event in the Principality was palpable on the shores and in the water, and it overflowed when four canoes with enviable track records reached the last kilometer with chances of victory, three of them with Asturian paddlers cheered on by the amateurs, riparian well-versed in the river who could not with the strength and quality of the French national team.
Quentin Urban and Jeremy Candy, two-time world champions, second in the last edition of the Sella, achieved the first international downhill victory in 25 years. For the first time the Marseillaise sounded on the winners’ podium in Ribadesella. “May victory, to your manly voices, come under our banners!” reads the lyrics, yesterday dedicated to the deeds of these French capable of defeating the renowned Asturian paddlers on their own river. The new kings of the Sella in the history of foreign winners succeed the South Africans Conradie and Wilson, winners in 1997.
The Sella returned with all its magic, with tradition, with picona monteras, with flower necklaces, with Asturias vibrating before one of its great days. Walter Bouzán, from Riosella, and Álvaro Fernández Fiuza, from Galicia, climbed to second place on the podium, and Julio Martínez, Cantabrian and Sella record holder, to third, along with Emilio Calledo Iglesias, from Parragué. Kilates of quality and experience for a competition that has no health problems, that seamlessly resists the passing of time.
The French victory was slow-cooked. It was not yet twelve o’clock when, with the handball player Raúl Entrerríos as master of ceremonies, the start was given in Arriondas. The traps were opened, the canoes came out, as is tradition, in droves, the fight began to take good positions on the river, to avoid unwanted stumbles. The South Africans Clinton Cook and Hamish Lovemore and the Argentines Dardo and Franco Balboa, fifth and tenth in the starting positions, began leading the test. The eighth champions Walter Bouzán and Álvaro Fernández Fiuza had more difficulties in the early stages, who after four years without competing together returned to present battle.
That the river carried little water seemed to be an advantage for the most knowledgeable of all its nooks and crannies, for those who have grown up alongside the Sella. Arriving at La Remolina, there were six boats leading the race: the South African K-2, the French, the Argentine, the recent European marathon champions Miguel Llorens, from Riosella, and Alberto Plaza, from Cangués; that of Julio Martínez and Emilio Llamado; that of Bouzán and Fiuza; and that of Avilesian Miguel Fernández Castañón and José Julián Becerro, until yesterday the last Sella champions. With measured shovels, they were devouring kilometers, looking for the best sheet of water, dodging stones and droughts. Some and others were taking turns at the front of the test and reserving strength to undertake the last kilometers.
