The old Las Rosas ball field will be renamed María Reyes Sports Center, la Comadre, in recognition of a pioneer woman in the sport of boules and petanque and historic president of the Rosario-Las Rosas Bolas Club since the early nineties of the last century. The mayor of El Rosario, Escolásico Gil, decided to start the procedure for this designation based on the municipal Honors and Distinctions Regulation and in line with other initiatives to give visibility, through the appointment of public spaces, to women who have been example in some disciplines.
Reyes is the president of the Rosario-Las Rosas Ball Club, founded in 1976, for more than three decades. She was a pioneer as a female petanque player in the 1980s and also in female Canarian ball from the 1990s onwards, and was selected on several occasions by the Tenerife Federation to play in Women’s Bola Canaria tournaments.
Throughout his extensive career in this sporting discipline, María Reyes has received numerous trophies and distinctions, both at a collective and individual level, and between 2006 and 2012, as president, she directed the organization of the Nuestra Señora de los Dolores Bolas and Petanque Tournament, dean of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
«It is necessary to continue paying off a historical debt that we have, not only in El Rosario, but at a general level as a society, with those women forgotten and relegated to the background, who, however, have had a capital importance in the development of the social, cultural or sporting life of our municipality,” said the local councilor. Along these lines, the Rosario City Council recalled that a year ago the designation of the municipal pavilion of El Chorrillo as Leticia Batista Sports Pavilion, in recognition of said gymnast and resident of the center of El Rosario, “one of the most awarded and veterans of national rhythmic gymnastics, which became the first municipal facility in El Rosario to which a woman gives its name.”
«Now, with the recognition of María Reyes, la Comadre, another step is raised to underline the importance that this woman has had, neighbor of the Las Rosas neighborhood, in promoting the sport of boules and petanque and thus perpetuating its name and its history to future generations,” explained Escolásico Gil about this initiative around her and a sport linked to local tradition.
