Paloma del Río
Paloma del Río Cañadas is a Spanish journalist. She covers rhythmic gymnastics, artistic gymnastics, figure skating, and equestrian competitions for Televisión Española. She has held various positions in TVE's sports directorate – editor-in-chief, director of sports programs, and currently coordinator of sponsorships and federations.
She has covered several European and World Championships, as well as eight Summer and six Winter Olympic Games. In 2015 she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit, and that same year she published her autobiographical book Enredando en la memoria.
She is considered part of the generation of pioneering women in Spanish sports journalism, along with Mari Carmen Izquierdo, Mercedes Milá, María Antonia Martínez, Elena Sánchez Caballero, Olga Viza, Mari Cruz Esteban, and María Escario.
Biography
Paloma del Río was born in Madrid in 1960. After completing the Baccalaureate, she took a clinical assistant course and began to work on the night shift of the intensive care unit of the Ruber Clinic in Madrid to pay for her studies. In her free time she continued with Curso de Orientación Universitaria studies, and majored in journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid without leaving work. She finished her degree with the second best record, so in 1986 she was able to choose a scholarship from the to do internships in television, in the sports section of the news. After a few months she passed some exams that allowed her to maintain her position at TVE.After a reorganization of the information services, she began to carry out sports broadcasts, the first of which was a table tennis match in Seville. The following month, in June 1987, she covered the for La 2 from Palma de Mallorca. After this she was a commentator for similar events, such as the World Championships, the European Championships, the World Cup, and the . Later, she also began to cover artistic gymnastics. From 1988 to 1989, del Río was deputy director of Domingo Deporte. After a time she also began to broadcast equestrian events, and beginning in 1994, figure skating. Throughout the years, she has commentated alongside former practitioners of these sports, such as José Novillo on broadcasts of artistic gymnastics, and, Maisa Lloret, María Martín, and Almudena Cid on rhythmic gymnastics.
From 2005 to 2008 she was editor of the program Olímpicos. ADO 2008, and later was the editor of broadcasts of the Beijing Olympics. In September 2011 she and María Escario were awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit by the Consejo Superior de Deportes.
On 31 August 2015, she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit, becoming the first journalist to receive it. On 16 November of that year, she presented her book of sports and personal memories, Enredando en la memoria, at CSD headquarters, where she also received her Gold Medal. In June 2017, she was the ambassador of the Pride Games. Since 17 September 2017, she has contributed a sports segment to the program on Radio Nacional de España. She has been a speaker at many conferences, round tables, and presentations on topics such as Women and Sport, Minority Sports, and Olympism.
In July 2018 her candidacy for the presidency of RTVE was announced, although in December she did not pass the final cut and was left out of the list of the 20 candidates to preside over the public entity. Subsequently, she and other excluded candidates filed an appeal against this decision, still pending resolution by lawyers of the Congress.
Personal life
Paloma del Río is openly lesbian. In June 2015 she appeared on the list of the 50 most influential homosexuals in Spain, prepared by El Mundos La Otra Crónica. During WorldPride Madrid 2017 she explained in an interview that "I never thought that I should be ashamed to be a lesbian" and indicated that Martina Navratilova had been a role model for her.Selected list of competitions covered
| Summer Olympic Games |
| Mediterranean Games |