Traditional Island Spectator Sports


The Canary Islands – and Lanzarote doesn’t make an exception here – feature some unique forms of sports that go back to Guanche times and have survived over the centuries. Today, still enthusiastically followed by the locals, the most popular of these ancient sports, with each village having its own team, is lucha canaria (Canarian wrestling), and there is no traditional fiesta without a lucha canaria competition, usually taking place in original Guanche locations and attracting large audiences.


Other traditional island sports are juego del palo (fighting with a 2 m long stick), salto del regaton de la garrocha (a form of pole vaulting with a 2.5 m long stick, where contestants leap down mountainsides and across ravines) and cock fighting, which has many followers among the locals, but is actually not much appreciated by tourists.