He welcomes us with the training clothes of the Tenerife CajaCanarias de athletics, his new club, with which he has been competing in the masters category as a shot putter for a few years. “I don’t want to be a president wearing a tie and always sitting in the office, I want to show closeness, I want to continue being Miguel Ángel, not the president of the Náutico de Güímar”, says he, who still holds several Guinness records for stationary bicycles.
Miguel Ángel Castro, a 54-year-old arafero, is a Civil Guard agent and has been working as a driver for the Canary Islands General Captaincy for years. Known in sports for his feats against time in spinning, Castro surprised everyone by overwhelmingly winning the elections for the presidency of the yacht club located in El Puertito de Güímar. From a thousand votes he got just over five hundred, beating the other two candidates presented. “My plank -he says- is made up of businessmen, people dedicated to the world of the sea, several officials, looking for a directive where everyone was employed, with their occupations, because having responsibility in your work you have responsibility in your hobby. We have an exciting project, with a great team. At first I didn’t feel like introducing myself, but they ended up convincing me and here I am”.
He affirms that he won the elections “without promises or big goals” and not because he doesn’t have them, but because “we cannot promise anything without knowing how the club’s accounts are, and for this we have commissioned an external audit. We want the greatest possible transparency in the two years that we have a mandate. A period too short for everything we want to do, for sure”.
Among the projects, he has in mind the expansion of the facilities, although he acknowledged that for this “we need to reach an agreement with Antonio Plasencia, the owner of the land below and below, we cannot because it is Costas’ land. We have an interesting project, but we don’t want to communicate it before it can come out, because we still look like fools”. Among those projects is the construction of a covered pavilion and the creation of a basketball team.
Regarding the port, he affirms that expansion is not possible, for now, but he is excited about “the waiting dock that did not exist”, which “is not only super important, but also was not required”.
The Náutico de Güímar currently has 2,300 members, so that one day, with relatives, more than five thousand people can meet on a good summer day. The club’s canon reduction (1,200 euros) will be studied at the next assembly, as it is often more expensive than shares, which some members sell for 600 euros. “I think it should be the other way around, that the member can get more out of his action, after the last spill of 300 euros for the canon and 300 for the action that there was to retouch the exterior face of the club.”
In the almost two months that he has been president, Miguel Ángel Castro points out that “everyone has welcomed me very well, my relations with all the partners are close, because I do not stop listening to any of them, whether they like me or not. I don’t have problems with anyone, anyone who can contribute knows that his doors are open and that he will always be listened to. That has always been my philosophy of life, personally and professionally.”
Regarding his sports career, Miguel Ángel Castro tells us that “I have left the bicycle parked for the time being, unless I get mad. Now I dedicate myself to athletics and I am delighted, I am already the champion of Spain master (over 45 years old) in weight and I am preparing to go to the European Championships in Rotterdam”, acknowledging that “I throw longer in training than in competition, perhaps because I have too many looks on me, something that on the bicycle you lower your head, pedal and pedal and I don’t feel that pressure”, comments the new president of the Náutico de Güímar.
