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Asturias Hosts World Gold Panning Championship for the Third Time

Asturias Hosts World Gold Panning Championship for the Third Time

Next August, the Asturian town of Navelgas will host the World Gold Panning Championship

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Martes, 28 de enero 2025, 18:26

Navelgas, the emblematic town located in the Tineo council, Asturias, is preparing to host the third World Gold Panning Championship from August 3 to 9. The event will gather the world's best gold panners in a unique setting, solidifying its status as a global reference in this discipline.

The "Barciaecus" Gold Panners Cultural Sports Association, established in 1997 to join the global gold panning movement for recreational and tourism purposes, is organizing all the preparations for this major event, which expects to gather around 600 participants, both national and international.

The Asturian town, known as the Valley of Gold due to its abundance of gold deposits, has been hosting these competitions for two decades. Besides the world championships in 2008 and 2015, it hosted the European competition in 2005 and annually holds the national gold panning championships. In 2014, the competition was declared a Regional Tourist Interest Festival in Asturias.

César Castaño, president of the "Barciaecus" Gold Panners Cultural Sports Association, explains that "in these 20 years, the sport of gold panning in Navelgas has only grown and strengthened, making this town the epicenter of gold panning in Spain. For this new edition, we will have 37,200 gold nuggets and 4,650 test tubes to contain this precious treasure."

This competition dates back to Finland about 50 years ago and soon spread to other gold-rich countries, now boasting 20 venues worldwide and thousands of participants.

"Gold panning championships are the best way to get into this sport and learn panning techniques. They attract a large number of enthusiasts who exchange knowledge and news and are governed by the rules of the WORLD GOLDPANNING ASSOCIATION," says César Castaño, president of Barciaecus.

Navelgas is a renowned town in Western Asturias, known worldwide as a European gold panning reference point. Located in the northwestern area of the Tineo council, or "Cuarto de los Valles," Navelgas has traditionally been the economic and service center of the region.

In the village of Navelgas, known as the Valley of Gold, gold prospecting has been documented since the Asturian Castro era to the present day, with many people visiting the town to try their luck in the riverbeds using the gold panning technique.

In 2003, the town was awarded the Exemplary Town of Asturias Prize by the Princess of Asturias Foundation, in recognition of "its continued and shared effort in the recovery and maintenance of its traditions and natural resources." This recognition values the town's success in reviving the ancient gold panning work, which has given the town international projection and enlivened the region's life.

The World Gold Panning Championship, held at the NAVELGAS ARENA by the river, consists of several categories where participants can compete individually or in groups. Gold panners in each group face several qualifying rounds, striving to reach the final.

Gold panners in the same round have a bucket of sand weighing between 10 and 20 kg, depending on the category, with a number of gold nuggets only known to the judges, varying between 5 and 20, the same number for all. They also have a pan and a plastic tube to store the points they find. Competitors stand in water boxes, where they must wash the sand to find gold, within a time frame usually between ten and twenty minutes.

Each round consists of approximately 15 participants. Before starting, the pan is washed, and the test tube for the gold nuggets is prepared by removing the cap and filling it with clear water. After finishing the sand, the competitor must close the tube with the cap and raise the pan for the jury to record the competitor's time. At the end of the panning time, participants who have not raised their pan are disqualified. The classification is based on the time taken to pan, with the first being the one with the shortest total time. Additionally, losing each nugget incurs a penalty of 3 minutes.

Once all the nuggets are collected, the participant requests their time and approaches the judges to show the nuggets they have obtained. When the count of nuggets and the time achieved by each are completed, the results are announced.

You can register for the championship by clicking here.

Navelgas, with a population of around 300 inhabitants, located in the northwestern quarter of the Tineo council, or "Cuarto de los Valles," has traditionally been a prominent economic and service center of this Asturian region. It is the second most important town in the council, only surpassed by the municipal capital itself. The heritage wealth of this area, although little known, is excellent, with numerous manor houses and palaces that allude to a noble past.

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todoalicante Asturias Hosts World Gold Panning Championship for the Third Time