José Luis Capitán and Juan Carlos Unzué, two people united by sport and related to Asturias in one way or another, have set out to face Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative disease for which there is still no treatment. “We are few and pharmaceutical companies are not worth investigating to find a solution”, regrets Captain, Madrid athlete based in Colloto and who holds the record for the climb to Angliru. Despite being in the advanced phase of the disease, paralyzed from the neck down, Capitán did not hesitate to promote together with Unzué –ex-footballer and former coach– a virtual race to raise funds, which will go to the Luzón Foundation.
People interested in participating in the “Unzué y Capitán Contra la ELA” campaign can register by paying a fee of five euros, which will allow them to accumulate kilometers by bicycle for a month, Unzué’s great passion aside from football, and running on foot, a sport in which Captain excelled. “The objective is to accumulate kilometers to go around the world,” says the former athlete, who has lived in Asturias since 2007, along with his wife, Teresa, and their children Bruno, Pablo and Julia.
“We are 4,000 people in Spain in this team of which I am part”, explains Unzué, who also has a special relationship with Asturias since his time at Oviedo, where he played as a goalkeeper from 1999 to 2001. Later, as a coach, he was Luis Enrique’s assistant at Celta and Barcelona. Unzué has become a standard-bearer in the fight against ALS since he was diagnosed with the disease, although he emphasizes that “José Luis, with his brother and his environment, have organized everything related to the virtual race.”
Captain and Unzué do not know each other personally, but a mutual friend put them in touch to carry out this initiative. “We have talked a lot and we have become quite friends,” explains José Luis Capitán, who highlights the involvement of the former soccer player: “People like Juan Carlos are important to give visibility to those of us who suffer from this disease.”
Captain, who was runner-up three times in Spain in mountain races and ran four European championships with the Spanish team, hopes to drag a whole legion of Olympic athletes, medalists in world and European championships, who have shared sports life with him and with his brothers Manolo and Vicente, also athletes.
Participants will have to download an application and will be able to accumulate kilometers as many times as they want, in the modality of bicycle or on foot, running or walking, explain the organizers. One of the objectives of Unzué and Capitán is that, regardless of the payment of the fee and achieve the highest possible fundraising, those registered make kilometers and upload videos and photos of it to their social networks, with the hashtag #UnzueyCapitancontralaELA, in order to achieve greater visibility of this fight against the disease.
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