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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Penyagolosa Trails: From Ancestral Roads to Sustainable Ultra-Trail Race, between Spirituality, Nature, and Sports. A Case of Study

Maria Escrivá-beltránDolores Botella-carrubiRosa Currás Móstoles

subject

lcsh:TJ807-830Sustainable tourismRural tourismGeography Planning and Developmentlcsh:Renewable energy sourcesNatural parkHeritageSports tourism010501 environmental sciencesManagement Monitoring Policy and Law01 natural sciencesRace (biology)0502 economics and businessRecreationlcsh:Environmental sciencesSustainable tourism0105 earth and related environmental scienceslcsh:GE1-350EsportsPilgrimageRenewable Energy Sustainability and the Environmentlcsh:Environmental effects of industries and plants05 social sciencesEnvironmental ethicsReligious tourismPilgrimagelcsh:TD194-195GeographyTranquillitySustainabilityORGANIZACION DE EMPRESAS050212 sport leisure & tourismSports tourism

description

[EN] The organization of an open-air sporting event involves a series of challenges. People are drawn by the desire to do sport, preferably in close contact with nature, so as to complement healthy lifestyles, and in search of air purity. Sporting organizations are increasingly searching for new locations that do not only attract athletes, but spectators and companions too. Races in natural parks provide the additional benefit of doing sport in a unique space, usually a transmitter of simplicity, pure air, and tranquillity. Organizing a mountain race in a natural park implies some issues. These are areas of great environmental richness that must be protected. Natural parks are places of individual recreational activity. Within the running phenomenon, a new type of mountain race has appeared: the hiking-oriented pilgrimage, in which athletes travel ancestral paths, pilgrimage routes thus combining sport practice with spirituality. This paper aims to analyse all the actions and policies that were carried out for the peaceful integration and coexistence of two totally different events that coincide physically and temporally: the Penyagolosa Trails race, and the Peregrins de les Useres, an ancestral pilgrimage that is carried out by each and every one of the towns belonging to the Penyagolosa Natural Park. The objective is to demonstrate the sustainability of the project thanks to the collective effort and the goodwill of the interested parties, in a way that produces a mutual benefit.

https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236605