Ángel Ortiz, el nieto del inventor de las palas de playa, quiere revolucionar este deporte

Ángel Ortiz, great-grandson of the inventor of the beach ball mallets, aspires to revolutionize this sport. The traditional sound of wooden mallets slapping balls in Santander's beaches has been enhanced with new technological noises. The classic clacks, echoing for decades in the Sardinero or Camello arenas, have evolved. Now, a radar system analyzes the intensity of the bombardment.

A group of enthusiasts aims to turn the game of mallets into an official sport and have integrated the Greek-invented system measuring speed, total strikes, and the number of times the ball touches the sand, to quantify the effort and skill level. Their champion, Ángel Ortiz, is the grandson of the first Santanderian to create those wooden mallets, now widely popular.

"I am bringing their dream to life," he explains, although traditionalists find this innovation in a game where the ball must never fall, despite its extreme pace, and those pioneers seek to make it more competitive by applying objective data.