It is very possible that it is difficult to believe that, being located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, far from rivers of significant flow and at least three or four hours away from the nearest beach, we Madrid residents feel a great passion for the water and any related activities.

Under this perspective and taking into account that three quarters of the population flee in disarray, every summer, looking for the sun on the beach - as an old song said, dedicated to a woman named Ana María - it may be paradoxical to affirm that in Madrid There has been, for many years, an important school, dedicated to a beautiful sport, such as canoeing.

Located in the heart of this magnificent set of nature, art, culture and mystery, which is the Retiro Park, it is difficult to walk at any time of the day in the vicinity of the Great Pond and not even stop for a few minutes to contemplate the harmonious evolutions of athletes, whose number of fans seems to be growing day by day.

As a lover of Art in general I consider myself, I cannot avoid resorting to that paradoxical world of comparisons and seeing canoeing as the ideal forerunner of great regattas, just as Romanesque art was the forerunner of much more art. elevated and complex, as was the Gothic.

The canoeist, either exercising alone or in pairs, learns, even in the delicate square meters of a rectangular-shaped pond, the first rudiments of a sport destined, possibly, for greater goals and major patronage on the high seas .

In this way, exercising in his canoe, the future catamaran skipper, acquires part of the same knowledge that medieval stonemasons developed in their constructions: balance, proportion, harmony and, of course, elegance.

NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property.