The new Cofidis Promising Paralympic Cycling Team has held a one-week concentration at the Murcia High Performance Center (CAR) to refine their physical preparation and psychological training with a view to upcoming competitions and the aspiration of being part of the Spanish Paralympic team cycling.
The new team for the future of Paralympic cycling is made up of 13 athletes, including the blind cyclist Lucía Peña and her pilot, Inés Rosado, winners of the National Youth Award last year, and David Mouriz, Paralympic chair basketball runner-up. of wheels in Rio 2016, as reported on Tuesday by the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE).
Also part of the team are Nacho Rodrigo and Erika González from Valencia, Leonardo Pedrero from Malaga, Jaime Villalba from Seville, Héctor Estudillo from Granada, Jordi Zapata from Mallorca, Eneko Arrieta from Biscay, Juan Alberto Jiménez from Zaragoza and Roger Freixe from Barcelona.
The concentration, which was possible thanks to the collaboration between Cofidis, the CPE, the Royal Spanish Cycling Federation and the High Performance Center (CAR) of Murcia, is part of the Cofidis Pedaleando Contigo project.
This project, created in 2018, has a social objective of promoting the social integration and development of people with disabilities through cycling, and another sporting objective of supporting the development of Spanish Paralympic cycling.
For its part, the Cofidis Paralympic Cycling Promises Team allows the recruitment and retention of talent, as well as the preparation of young people with disabilities for their jump to the elite of Paralympic sport.
“At Cofidis we are very committed to integration and inclusion, which is why this concentration organized together with the Spanish Paralympic Committee is so important, as it allows us, through sport, to integrate young people with functional diversity, who are a clear example of improvement and inspiration to new generations of athletes to achieve their dreams”, said Anna Golsa, director of Digital Business and Marketing at Cofidis.
During the concentration, the athletes went out to ride on the roads of Murcia under the supervision of Begoña Luis, technical director of the Cofidis Paralympic Promises Team, who is also in charge of giving visibility to the cycling sport among the disabled population and conducting talent detection Paralympic cyclists.
The athletes participated in different training sessions that allowed them to prepare physically and perform different tests, and they also used bicycles individually adapted for each need based on their disability.