Tirador (velodrome)

About

Tirador (Catalan: Velòdrom del Tirador or Velòdrom de Tirador) is a velodrome in Palma (Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain). It is an outdoor track cycling, opened in 1903, and used to be the most important velodrome built in Spain for six decades until the construction of the Velódromo de Anoeta (San Sebastián) in 1965. Tirador was closed in 1973 and still exists but is no longer in use. It was the leading cycling track in Spain for six decades until the construction of Velódromo de Anoeta (San Sebastián) in 1965. Since 2015 is municipally owned, and in 2020 it was declared a Listed Building by the Palma City Council. Closed for years, it suffered a process of abandonment and progressive degradation. The City Council planned to demolish it to build a green area; but it was saved in extremis thanks to the actions of various groups fighting for the conservation, such as the Associació de Veïns des Fortí and citizen initiatives, particularly the researcher Manuel García Gargallo, who achieved the preservation and publicized its historical and cultural value. This led Palma City Council, which had initially planned to demolish it to create a park, to rehabilitate it for the same purpose...

Before the construction of the velodrome, this place had been owned by the carders' guild since the 14th century, being the place where they washed, stretched and dried the clothing. It owes its name to the process of stretching the clothing ( tirar translating to 'stretching' in Old Catalan, and tirador to 'place where one stretches').

The Palma cyclist society Veloz Sport Balear was the driving force behind its construction. In the decade of the 1890s, track cycling was beginning to take hold on the island and, with it, several short slopes of poor quality were constructed. That is how the first velodrome of the capital was born: Son Espanyolet, inaugurated in 1893. Like the rest, its construction was technically deficient (it was reopened two times more to make up for its shortcomings) and Veloz Sport Balear (one of the tenants of the track) thought of building an enclosure of higher quality, in addition to doing it on their own land guarantee its durability. For this, the association acquired some land (then outside the walls) of the city, near the torrent of Sa Riera that formerly crossed the city.

The first stone of the velodrome was placed on 4 December 1898, but various circumstances (mainly lack of liquidity ) interrupted the works on several occasions and prolonged them for almost five years, until the velodrome was inaugurated on 10 August 1903. After its inauguration, the activity in Son Espanyolet completely ceased, and shortly afterwards, it disappeared.

Its inauguration was a national event, and very soon, Tirador became the reference track in Spain : The Spanish National Track Cycling Sprint Championship was held there in 1904, a tournament that had ceased to be disputed in 1897 because of the lack of an adequate track. At the same time, it propitiated the birth of the Spanish National Track Cycling Motor-Paced Championships in 1908, until then non-existent, since it was the most suitable track for the long-distance race dispute. Despite this, the cycling fans in Mallorca were going through a period of crisis and the amateur only responded to the big events, so during the rest of the year in the precinct was practiced all kinds of sports, especially football.

The first years of the track contributed to the consolidation and development of the Mallorcan cycling fans and the emergence of the first local Spanish Championships from 1913. Since then, the Spanish track has been dominated by Mallorcan cyclists for decades, especially in the medium-depth category. Remarkable cyclists from this era include Simó Febrer "Guixer" and Miquel Bover Salom. In 1920, Veloz Sport Balear planned to replace the runway with a covered velodrome of greater capacity and functionality due to the success of the contested events, similar to Vélodrome d'Hiver of Paris (the Vél d'Hiv ); but nothing happened, and the track remained the same.

Between 1921 and 1925 was closed by a federative sanction, and upon its reopening it regained its leadership in Spanish track cycling without problems. Successively, there were appearing tracks in Spain that could be an alternative, like the Velodrome of Ciudad Lineal ( Madrid ), the velodrome annexed to Estadio Torrero ( Zaragoza ) or the velodrome of Sants ( Barcelona ), which hosted several editions of the Spanish National Track Cycling Championships in the 1920s and 1930s. However, for various reasons, these were all of short duration, leaving Tirador as the only track of reference.

During the Spanish Civil War the track was practically inactive, but suffered no material damage. At the end of the war, the track recovered its activity with equal or greater force and, except for specific periods, during the 1940s and 1950s its cycling activity was constant at all levels. During these years the competition of foreign cyclists was scarce, first because the Second World War and then because the diplomatic isolation of the country. Cyclists that stood out in this era were the Mallorcan runners Miquel Llompart and Bartomeu Flaquer. During those years, new tracks appeared in Campos (1935), Tortosa (1943), Mataró (1948) and others of shorter voyage, which hosted important events and official championships with assiduity, but without ever challenging the Palma track for being the main reference.

The victory of the Mallorcan Guillem Timoner in the 1955 World Championship held in Milan was an accolade for the track, which since then entered the circuit of great tracks of the world attracted by the local champion, regular runner on the track. This also coincided with a generation of Mallorcan cyclists who achieved international relevance and helped to consolidate the international range of the track, like Pere Josep Gomila, Josep Escalas, Francesc Tortella, or the 1965 world champion, Miquel Mas.

From the 1950s, some projects were created to replace the velodrome with other facilities of greater capacity and functionality, once the worst postwar years were overcome, because of gradual aging of Tirador. Nevertheless, nothing would actually change, and the track survived. The moment of greatest danger was the ambitious municipal project planned in the 1960s by the mayor Màxim Alomar to cover the torrent of Sa Riera that crosses the city and passed by the side of the track, but that was finally discarded due to its high cost.

The opening of the Velódromo de Anoeta ( San Sebastián ) in 1965, with the celebration of the World Championships the same year, marked the beginning of its decline. From then on, Tirador ceased to be the reference track in Spain and entered a process of irreversible decadence. It stopped receiving first level tournaments from 1968 (it would still host official Spanish National Championships until 1972). Its increasing deterioration and the generalized loss of interest in track competitions to the detriment of road cycling forced its definitive closure in March 1973. The last rehabilitation projects in collaboration with the Spanish or Balearic federations did not succeed and the construction of a new velodrome in the neighboring town of Algaida in 1975 buried it definitively in oblivion.

Since then, its owners, a Veloz Sport Balear in bad moments, dedicated the land to other uses. In 1999, paddle courts were built in the central space and a parking lot for the users, for which the runway was mutilated at the height of one of the cantons to allow access for the vehicles. And shortly after, another velodrome space was used as a municipal vehicle depot. Meanwhile, the track was abandoned and in a state of progressive degradation.

Since the 1990s, the municipal government planned the construction of a large green area in the torrent of Sa Riera called Sa Falca Verda ('The Green Wedge'). The design of the park, in line with a project by Manuel Ribas i Piera and approved in 2002, contemplated the disappearance of the track, except for the Xalet of Gaspar Bennazar. In 2007 a first phase of the park was inaugurated, the so-called Parc de sa Riera (Sa Riera Park), and the expropriation procedures were continued for the second, among whose land was Tirador.

The judicial appeals filed by the affected owners and the delay in their resolution meant that the expropriation of the velodrome to be delayed until July 2015. However, the municipality was unable to act because the appraisal of the land and its subsequent payment were still pending a final judicial resolution. In short, Tirador was not entirely municipal until February 2019.

Meanwhile, the initial Sa Falca Verda project for the area had been scrapped. When the expropriation took place in 2015, the Palma City Council had replaced the initial design of Ribas i Piera with another that maintained the historic installation integrated in the future green area, plus the annexed site of the old Canòdrom Balear (an old greyhound track). The new design was in charge of the architect's studio Isabel Bennasar Félix and the green area was named Bosc Urbà (Urban Forest).

Due to the lack of maintenance until the expropriation of 2015 was final, the facilities underwent an accelerated process of degradation until finding themselves in an unfortunate state of neglect and dirt, in addition to the presence of squatters. Meanwhile, the project for the rehabilitation of the velodrome and the allocation of a budget for its execution were being processed.

Finally, on 22 May 2025 the preliminary project for the rehabilitation of the runway to convert it into a green area was presented, according to the design of architects Isabel Bennasar and Corina Dîndăreanu.

Before the construction of the velodrome, this place had been owned by the carders' guild since the 14th century, being the place where they washed, stretched and dried the clothing. It owes its name to the process of stretching the clothing ( tirar translating to 'stretching' in Old Catalan, and tirador to 'place where one stretches').

The Palma cyclist society Veloz Sport Balear was the driving force behind its construction. In the decade of the 1890s, track cycling was beginning to take hold on the island and, with it, several short slopes of poor quality were constructed. That is how the first velodrome of the capital was born: Son Espanyolet, inaugurated in 1893. Like the rest, its construction was technically deficient (it was reopened two times more to make up for its shortcomings) and Veloz Sport Balear (one of the tenants of the track) thought of building an enclosure of higher quality, in addition to doing it on their own land guarantee its durability. For this, the association acquired some land (then outside the walls) of the city, near the torrent of Sa Riera that formerly crossed the city.

The first stone of the velodrome was placed on 4 December 1898, but various circumstances (mainly lack of liquidity ) interrupted the works on several occasions and prolonged them for almost five years, until the velodrome was inaugurated on 10 August 1903. After its inauguration, the activity in Son Espanyolet completely ceased, and shortly afterwards, it disappeared.