Paco Borao, AIMS President, and Elena Tejedor, Director of the Trinidad Alfonso Foundation, in Valencia (© LOC)
Trinidad Alfonso has become the title partner of the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships Valencia 2018 which takes place on Saturday 24 March 2018, organisers announced today.
The Trinidad Alfonso Foundation is supporting the event in which many of the world’s best athletes and thousands of members of the public will run on a fast, unique course with the finishing line in the City of Arts and Sciences.
The official name of the event will, therefore, be the IAAF/Trinidad Alfonso World Half Marathon Championships Valencia 2018 (or its corresponding name in Spanish, IAAF/Trinidad Alfonso Campeonato del Mundo de Media Maratón Valencia 2018). The Trinidad Alfonso Foundation, a non-profit foundation chaired by Juan Roig, has the aim of promoting values such as a strong work ethic through sports projects that take place in the Valencia region.
This collaboration with the World Half Marathon Championships allows the Trinidad Alfonso Foundation to continue its strategy of supporting sports events that help to position Valencia as the city of running. It has been the main contributor to the Valencia Marathon and Half Marathon for the past five years. The Spanish Federation considers these races to be the best Spanish races at these distances and the fastest on national soil. In addition, they are the first races in the country to obtain the IAAF Gold Label and, recently, Joyciline Jepkosgei broke her own world record* (1:04:51) at the 27th edition of the Valencia Half Marathon on Sunday 22nd October.
Elena Tejedor, director of the Trinidad Alfonso Foundation, explains the reasons that led the organisation to lend its support to this World Championship: "For us this event meets several of our foundational goals. On one hand, running and especially these long distance races exemplify, like few others, the culture of a strong work ethic linked to sport that we promote. On the other hand, we love that the name of Valencia is crossing borders, that it is becoming a reference for sport tourism. The world championship is the culmination of the 'Valencia, City of Running' project that we have been promoting for three years."
"We are convinced it will be a success. We have the organisational experience of SD Correcaminos, who also leads the Valencia Marathon and Half Marathon, and the City Council, which has made a significant contribution to attracting this event."
The Trinidad Alfonso Foundation and its commitment to sport
The Trinidad Alfonso Foundation has promoted more than 50 social projects since its inception in 2012. The Valencia Marathon and Half Marathon are the spearheads of an ambitious initiative, 'Valencia, City of Running', which aims to make the city on the banks of the Turia into a benchmark for races on foot. The construction of a 5-kilometre circuit in Turia Gardens, which is exclusively designed for runners, is an example of this. In addition, the foundation also supports Valencian athletes through the FER Project, which in 2017 brings together 121 athletes, some of them with the possibility of going to the next Olympic or Paralympic Games in Tokyo. Another foundation initiative is the Competitive Events Support Programme, which has brought more than 40 official championships for a number of different sports to the Valencian Community over the last two years and the programme has provided the Spanish federations with €400,000 in financial support. The foundation also works to bring sport and its values to youngsters with initiatives such as Effort Counts and Discounts, Actibasket and the promotion of events to celebrate the World Day for Physical Activity and Sport in more than 200 schools, making it possible for more than 80,000 children to practice sport in their schools.
Juan Roig and sports sponsorship
Juan Roig's support for sport is not only through the Trinidad Alfonso Foundation, of which he is the president and sole patron. Roig is also the largest shareholder of Valencia Basket and in 2016 alone, in his personal capacity and from his own assets, he invested €20 million in sports sponsorship through these two vehicles. His latest great sports legacy is the creation of L'Alqueria del Basket, a unique sports facility in Europe. This project aims to create top-level facilities to encourage the generation of talent in basketball and to promote the training of people in the values of a strong work ethic. L'Alqueria del Basket, which opened in September, has 13 basketball courts, of which nine are covered and have parquet flooring and the remaining four are outdoor.
Organisers for the IAAF
*Subject to the usual ratification procedures
