la Nucia

La Nucía is a municipality in the Marina Baixa region of Alicante that has built, with determination over decades, a sports management model that today stands as a European benchmark. Located in a fruit-growing valley between Benidorm and Callosa d'en Sarrià, just three kilometres from the Mediterranean coastline, the town is not large by population standards — fewer than 18,000 inhabitants — but its impact on the European sporting ecosystem is disproportionate and widely admired. The town's name has its roots in the Arabic 'Naziha', meaning 'delicious', a word that might well be applied to the sporting experience the city offers.

The Camilo Cano Sports Performance Centre and its namesake stadium are the heart of that commitment. These facilities, which include football pitches, athletics tracks, multi-sport halls and spaces for specialist high-performance sports, host each year the training camps and pre-season sessions of national teams from various European and Latin American countries. CF La Nucía, founded in 1995, embodies the local commitment to grassroots football and youth development, having achieved promotion to Spain's third division in 2019.

ACES Europe has recognised La Nucía on three separate occasions: European Town of Sport in 2013, 'Best European Sports Town of All Time' in 2017 — after competing against 35 other European localities — and once again European Town of Sport in 2024, eleven years after the first title. This triple recognition makes La Nucía a unique case in the history of the European sports movement. Its 8 events registered in EWoS 2024 reflect the consistency of a model that prioritises citizen participation and inclusion over mere spectacle.