VALENCIA'S Malvarrosa beach is set to host Europe's biggest inflatable flamingo race today (Saturday) with over 200 competitors and spectators expected to congregate on the shores.
Part of the Taronja Games Festival – taronja being the valenciano word for 'orange', the region's most prolifically-harvested fruit – the Flamingueo Run entry fee includes a blow-up flamingo pool-floater for each participant.
They will then carry their floaters, run for 150 metres along the beach and then swim for 75 metres, and the fastest flamingo-human combination wins.
The Taronja Games Festival includes live music and a wide range of sporting activities – a concept known as 'sportainment', or a fusion of sports and entertainment.
Said to be the largest in Europe of its kind, Valencia's inflatable flamingo race is expected to become an annual event and the organisers hope to be able to export it later on to Barcelona and Ibiza.
It is run by a blow-up flamingo floater company in the province of Alicante and supported by Lanzadera, the start-up promotion firm founded by supermarket Mercadona's owner Juan Roig and which has reported a turnover of €1 million in the last year.
The photograph, from Instagram, shows 'it-boy' Kiko Rivera – son of flamenco singer Isabel Pantoja – with an inflatable flamingo floater in the pool.
Curiously, flamenco is the Spanish word for 'flamingo' and also for 'Flemish', as well as for the traditional dance and music from Andalucía Rivera's mother is famous for.
