"I may be biased but Mallorca has lots of things to brag about"

Tennis player and winner of 22 Grand Slam titles Rafa Nadal, former World number one tennis player Carlos Moya, who is now Rafa’s coach. Men’s footballer Marco Asensio currently at Paris Saint Germain, two of Spain’s World Cup winning women’s team footballers Cata Coll and Mariana Caldentey, Real Madrid basketball player Rudy Fernández, three time Moto GP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo and one time Moto GP Champion Joan Mir. There are many more who may not have hit the heights of the people above but have and are still carving out great careers. This is not just about people competing, we have coaches who are now training top sportsmen away from the island too. In the sport I know best, football, Carlos Cuesta is an assistant coach at Arsenal and Carlos Vicens is an assistant coach at Manchester City.

It’s no surprise that Lionel Scaloni the World Cup winning coach of Argentina chooses to live here!
So how do we do it? Well you only have to look around to see the first class facilities we have around the island. Where I live in Calvia alone you can find football, golf, swimming, athletics, tennis, sailing, boxing, gymnastics, golf, and cycling, to name just a few. But all are top class not just a park with a couple of goal posts.

With what we have in facilities, the athletes and coaches we produce it’s no wonder that other countries and athletes look at Mallorca as a place to come and train. What more can you ask for with what I’ve already written? I should add though which makes us even more attractive is that we’re an island in the Mediterranean only a couple of hours flight from most European cities, so access is easy.

Tom Daley training in Mallorca

The reason I’m saying all this is we were contacted last week by the diver Tom Daley. In my mind Tom had retired from diving and wasn’t competing anymore. Last year I remember him and all his family coming to Pirates and enjoying a holiday here on the island. But his desire to return to the pool was ignited by his son who said he’d love to see his Papa compete at the Paris Olympics in 2024. Tom was here in Mallorca with the GB diving team training at the Son Hugo diving pool.

He contacted us to bring the whole team to Pirates. He was there to relax of course but was more than happy to answer a couple of questions.

What are the expectations for you and the team going into Paris 2024?

“I have only recently come back to the sport, so for me I want to enjoy the process and the journey to firstly qualifying for Paris and then doing the best I can!”

What makes Mallorca such a good place to do a training camp?

“Mallorca is a great place for a pre-season training camp, the weather, the facilities, the food and the people. We have been coming here since 2012!”

I’m sure between now and the Olympics next year we’re going to see more and more athletes and teams from around the World training and enjoying our island. Remember this is something that will help our economy and help us to become an all year round destination.

Football all around

I went to see Palma Futsal play Barcelona on Tuesday on the same night that Real Mallorca were also playing Barcelona. Futsal in case you didn’t know is indoor 5 a side football played in two halves of 20 minutes. It’s fast and furious and a little bit like a game of basketball. Palma Futsal are the reigning European Champions which is something to shout about. From 0-2 down at half-time they came back to win 5-4. Given the choice I prefer 11 a side football but judging by the 4,000 crowd that were there it’s very popular here. We came out of that stadium to watch Mallorca play Barcelona. I was very impressed with the atmosphere the club built up before the game and they have to be congratulated on the money spent on improving the stadium. The new screen on top of the new stand is very impressive.

Mallorca decided to turn up for this game and didn’t look a team that is struggling for goals. A 2-2 draw was well deserved against a top of the league Barcelona team and I hope they can continue that desire into the next game and beyond.

My two sons had differing results over the weekend. Jude’s team won 3-1 against Son Sardina and went to the top of the league. But Jake’s team got gubbed 5-0 against top of the table CE Espanya. Home games this week means that Dad Taxi has an easy weekend.

Take care everybody and enjoy your week!