Thursday, 10th August 2023
Calvià Town Hall recognizes the career of Joan Munar, one of our most international athletes
Joan Munar competes in adapted athletics due to his visual impairment. His next date is the 2024 Paris Olympics
Joan Munar has received a plaque in recognition of his sporting career. The one known as "El Rayo de Calvià" is at 27 years old one of the most international athletes in our sport. Munar and his family have been received this Thursday at the Town Hall by the mayor Juan Antonio Amengual and Javier Tascón, head of Sports, amongst others. Last July, Munar won the bronze medal in the long jump at the World Athletics Championships held in Paris, a milestone that has provided him with a ticket to the next 2024 Olympic Games, also in Paris.
The Mayor explained that «the support and recognition of Joan from the Town Hall is unanimous. In him we have an example to follow, it is a pride that excites us to have athletes like him in Calvià ». Joan Munar —already with the objective of the 2024 Games in mind— has assured that «I have a very high motivation to return to international competition. I am going to try to repeat medal in Paris). For his part, the deputy mayor responsible for Sports, Javier Tascón, highlighted that "in Calvià we have good sports facilities, but without people like Joan, with his drive and determination, with the goals that lie ahead... Without people like him It would not be possible".
Munar's career (Palma, 1996) began at the Peguera football school, the area where he grew up, when he was five years old. After five years he left seven-a-side football and started at the Calvià club. Then he already began to notice that he could not control the measurements of the field and the rhythm of eleven-a-side football. Even so, he had the support of coaches and teammates who scheduled games during the day so he could play. Then he already stood out for his speed.
In September 2010, at the age of 14, he started athletics in Magaluf, at the ADA Calvià club.
He was then the only athlete with a disability, but he demonstrated his expertise in this individual sport, without hindrance, with persistence and discipline. Already in January 2011 he managed to make the minimum mark to be able to participate in the 60-metre dash of the Spanish Indoor Championship in the U16 category without disabilities. Since then he had already been given the option to train exclusively speed. Munar won the Mallorca Regional Athletics Championship and in June 2011 he was proclaimed the winner of the Spanish national championship, it was the first time he had competed with other athletes with disabilities. In 2012 he participated in the first adapted European athletics championship in the Netherlands, where he was proclaimed European Champion of 100 and 200 m, and silver in the 4x100 relay race. From there, to the Paralympic Games in London, at the age of 16, the youngest athlete in the expedition, where he finished 12th in the 100m and unqualified in the 4 x 100m race.
In 2013 he competed in the Spanish national championships, where he won a gold medal in the 200 m and a silver in the 100 m. In July 2013 he participated in the 2013 IPC World Athletics Championships. In 2014 at the European Athletics Championships in Wales he got a silver in the 200-metre dash and two bronze medals, and in the Balearic Islands they won the Illes Balears clubs without disabilities championship with ADA Calvià. In 2015 he participated in the World Championship in Doha where he got a bronze medal, for which he prepared at the Sant Cugat High Performance Centre. At the 2016 European Championship in Italy, he won gold in the 400 m and bronze in the 200 m. It was also a Paralympic year in Rio, in which he got a fourth place. The following season he moved to MesclatSport and in 2017 he won the first two individual medals at the World Championship in London, but an injury led Joan Munar to undergo surgery in 2018. After two years without competing at the highest level, he missed the Tokyo Olympics due to injuries. Now, the next appointment is Paris 2024.