Albox and Oria win awards for their fair play: Tíjola hosts the launch of the Provincial Sports Games
Albox and Oria, the best-ranked in their bracket in ‘Almería Juega Limpio’, and two rural schools in the Almanzora, given awards in Tíjola by Almería Provincial Council.
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Fair play takes training too, and in the Almanzora Valley it comes with a prize. Albox and Oria were the top-ranked municipalities in their population brackets in ‘Almería Juega Limpio’ (Almería Plays Fair), the values programme of the Provincial Sports Games (Juegos Deportivos Provinciales, JDP). The awards were handed out at the ‘Al Moroc’ Sports Complex in Tíjola, during the presentation of the 36th edition of the Games, as Almería Provincial Council reported this Wednesday.
Albox won in the bracket for more than 10,000 inhabitants, in which it is the only town in the Valley (it has 12,799 residents, according to the INE, Spain’s National Statistics Institute), and Oria in the 2,000 to 3,500 bracket. The other brackets went to Uleila del Campo, Gérgal, Tabernas and Viator.
Rural schools also made it onto the podium. In the Bailes Interactivos (Interactive Dances) competition, CPR Medio Almanzora took the ‘Vídeo de Bronce’ (Bronze Video) among schools, and CPR Alto Almanzora took a special distinction. They are rural state schools (colegios públicos rurales), the kind that group together the classrooms of several small villages.
What the Games bring this school year
The 2026-2027 JDP are aimed at schoolchildren aged 6 to 17 and are organised into four blocks:
- Educational workshops, during school hours and from Infantil (pre-school) to ESO (compulsory secondary education): climbing, fencing, caving, wakeboarding, urban dance or first aid.
- Meets for pickleball, triathlon, beach handball, padel and beach tennis.
- Educational leagues, from January to June and from the benjamín to the juvenil age categories, in basketball, futsal, volleyball and multi-sport.
- Promotional circuits with the Andalusian federations: chess, track athletics, cross-country, rhythmic gymnastics, swimming and rugby.
Added to these are the Virtual JDP, with chess and interactive dances, and ‘Almería Juega Limpio’, which works on camaraderie, respect and the peaceful resolution of conflicts with families, coaches and referees. The Provincial Council specifies that the content depends on budget availability, and Cajamar collaborates on the programme.
Why it matters in the villages
The idea is for sport to reach every corner, small municipalities included, through their schools. That is how the provincial councillor for Sport, María Luisa Cruz, put it; in her view, “sporting activity is going to reach schoolchildren across the whole province”. Tíjola’s councillor for Sport, Juan Manuel Gómez, extended a welcome and highlighted that, with football, basketball and volleyball, boys and girls receive values and the habit of doing sport.
An award that, in villages like Oria or in the classrooms of rural schools, says a lot: in the Valley, school sport is also won with values.
