The UNEATLANTICO auditorium will host four conferences between February and May with lectures and round tables, which will take place on a Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m. Admission will be free and open to the general public.
The Royal Cantabrian Football Federation (Real Federación Cántabra de Fútbol), the Universidad Europea del Atlántico (European Atlantic University), and the Real Racing Club Foundation (Fundación Real Racing Club) are organizing a series of four educational talks with sport and health as a common link over the next four months. All of them will be held in the auditorium of the university center and will be free of charge for all audiences.
The first day of the lecture series will take place next Monday, February 19, starting at 7:00 pm. The first talk will be given by the physical trainer of the Spanish national soccer team, Antonio Gómez, who will discuss training planning in team sports.
The duration of the presentation will be forty minutes, followed by another forty minutes of round table with the presence of Ignacio Torrescusa, physical trainer of the Spanish handball team and Balonmano Torrelavega. This first meeting will end with a 15-minute question-and-answer session to encourage the participation of the attendees.
The next installment of the series “Sport and Health: Voices that Inspire” (Deporte y salud: voces que inspiran) will be held on March 18. Joaquín Díaz, president of the Cantabrian Association of Sports Psychology (APD-Cantabria) and former president of the Spanish Federation of Sports Psychology (FEPD), and Óscar Fernández, soccer player and author of “Life and soccer: the importance of learning to fail” (Vida y fútbol: la importancia de aprender a fracasar), will be at the University’s auditorium to talk about mental health in sport, which will be the central theme of the lectures. They will be joined by psychologists Milagros Estrada and Ariadna Siri, both linked to the world of sports.
On the other hand, the Universidad Europea del Atlántico collaborates with the Cantabrian Football Federation and the Colmun Clinic in the project called PREVENGOL, which aims to reduce injury risk factors in soccer players. This will be the pretext for the celebration of the third day, on April 15, which will focus on the prevention of injuries and their evolution. Luis Hoyos and Yago Regal, Real Racing Club’s youth academy therapists, will give two presentations, which will precede a round table discussion with teacher Fernando Maniega; the former professional footballer and Coordinator of Racing’s Youth Teams, Gonzalo Colsa; and Álvaro Mantilla, current player of the Santander team.
The lecture series “Sport and Health: Voices that Inspire” will conclude at UNEATLANTICO on Monday, May 13, at 7:00 p.m., offering the audience tools to accompany the young athlete. Sergi Alamillo, sports coach and basketball trainer, and Dr. Isabel Diego and Dr. Juan Luis Martín, psychologists, and professors at the Universidad Europea del Atlántico, will be in charge of giving the talks.
The president of the RFCF, José Ángel Peláez, wanted to highlight “the importance of carrying out this type of training initiatives,” adding that “the Federation, with its new philosophy, is working hard on the training of its players, coaches, referees, and all professionals working in the soccer environment, in general.” Finally, he wanted to highlight the “strength given to the project by organizing it jointly with two leading entities in education and sports, such as UNEATLANTICO and the Racing Foundation.”
In the presence of the rector of UNEATLANTICO, Rubén Calderón, the head of the International Service of Covenants and Sports Agreements of the university, Josep Alemany, stressed that “it is in our ideology to offer comprehensive training, through lectures and workshops, and to do it jointly with the Federation, as happens with the University Indoor Football League (Liga Universitaria de Fútbol Sala) and the Racing Foundation, is unbeatable.” Alemany also expressed the hope that this “will be the first of many editions.”