BarcelonaDuring a weekend, everything changes in Bagà. When the Salomon Ultra Pirineu arrives, thousands of people make their way to this municipality of Berguedà, each chasing their dream. Some want to see the athletes they admire in action, some want to improve a personal best. Others are content with watching their loved ones finish some of the different races in a Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park altered by this crazy weather. On the same day that it has snowed below 2,000 meters and some of the routes that the athletes will follow have been covered in flour, the heat intensifies.
In the case of Pol Makuri Redolad (La Paz, Bolivia, 1991), the dream is to be able to be like Salomon. The Igualadí athlete, born in Bolivian lands when his parents lived there doing jobs in the cooperation sector, recently became the first runner with functional diversity to finish the popular Zegama-Aizkorri, the Basque mountain marathon where he moved with some images that appear in the documentary he has made together with the Salomon brand, with whom he works closely. Now it’s his turn to be able to participate in the half marathon of the Salomon Ultra Pirineu. “I know the area, of course, but I would have liked to be able to go through the marathon scene in detail. But it will be just as exciting,” he explains to the ARA a few hours before he also participates in the vertical kilometer test.
At 31, the Pole has turned his sports career around to focus on mountain racing, after being able to live a dream of being at the Beijing Paralympics in 2022 in the skiing discipline of background “It was a dream, I had it in my head. But I’m clear that it will be very difficult to be able to return to the Games because of the conditions that you have to go there. Now it’s time to live the races,” he says. And how he enjoys them, teasing people who get excited with his aggressive running style, especially when he goes uphill. “I suffer more on the downhills,” admits this athlete who suffers from hemiparesis, a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to move one half of the body without becoming paralyzed. It has not been a problem for him to be the first athlete with cerebral palsy to be a Paralympian in Spain in skiing events. Now he is making history in the mountains by running, balancing with the help of a stick, since half of his body has very little sensitivity.
El Pol was destined to climb mountains, having been born in one of the highest cities in the world, La Paz. When he was still a baby he was already in Igualada, where his parents quickly detected that he did little with the right side of his body. It was hemiparesis. “I’ve never stopped dreaming. Honestly, I wouldn’t change anything. Having hemiparesis has allowed me to experience incredible things that I probably wouldn’t have experienced if I didn’t have it,” explains a man who practiced sports from an early age. Especially skiing and hockey, sports well rooted in Igualada. “Having played hockey, where you slide on the rink, helped me adapt to skiing and racing. I can only carry a stick with my left hand, as I have little sensitivity and mobility in my right, and it could hurt me,” he says.
In fact, when he started running he did it in hiking boots, instead of sports shoes like almost all other participants in this type of race. The solution to improve was to start participating, with the help of Salomon, with a boot on the right foot, where he needs more strength, and with a vamp on the left foot. “There are people who see my feet in races and don’t understand, what I do with each different foot,” half-jokes Pol Makuri, a compound name, half Catalan and half Bolivian. “A lot of people think Makuri is the last name, but it’s a Bolivian name,” he adds. His life has always been like this, balancing, like his name, like his shoes.
“When he reached the age of 18, he had to leave roller hockey. He was the only one with a disability in a team where the others did not have one. And when it was time to move to the absolute category, it became complicated. And I focused in cross-country skiing, a sport my father had taught me. My parents had always gone to the mountains. I had also been boy scout, I really liked this world. Then I met an athlete with functional diversity who had participated in a World Cup in cross-country skiing. And I decided to do the same. The first time I signed up for a race they asked me for a medical certificate and I realized I didn’t even have one. I knew the diagnosis when I was little and that was enough. Now a certificate was needed to decide the category in which he would participate. In my case, disability had become part of my life in such a natural way that I didn’t even think about it,” he recalls.
The problem, however, was that in cases of hemiparesis each case has different effects. “Different situations compete in the same category. So for me it was very difficult to finish in the top eight in an international event that qualifies you for a Paralympic Games. It was competing in inferior conditions, so I asked to be able to go to a Games with an invitation. I finally got it. When I was told I cried, moved. It was a beautiful experience, partly also because the people of the Paralympic Committee got to see live how I was fighting in inferior conditions, doing a good performance.”
Between scholarships, work and aid, Pol has been able to continue competing in skiing until recently, but he was aware that it would be almost utopian to receive a new invitation to be at the Paralympic Games in 2024. So, he has focused on the races, without stopping to study. He has an average degree in administrative management, another in graphic design and a leather craftsman. It is unstoppable.
The return of Núria Picas
Pol’s challenge will be to finish the half marathon on Sunday. Before that, this Saturday is the marathon, the seventh qualifying race of the Spartan Trail World Championship circuit. In the women’s category, the presence of the Swede Emelie Forsberg will stand out, who will be supported by her husband, Kilian Jornet, who for once will be at the Salomon as a fan, not as a runner. Forsberg is, along with Ida Nilsson, Núria Gil or Irena Raczunska, one of the favorites in this 42-kilometer circular route that accumulates more than 2,800 meters of positive elevation gain. The race takes place in the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, on a route in which the 1,300 registered runners will pass through emblematic places such as the Niu de l’Àliga, the Peñas Altes or the Empedrats. In the men’s category, names such as Jan Margarit, Robert Pkemboi or Eduard Hernandez aspire to victory.
Departure will be at half past nine in the morning. And the arrival will be around twelve noon in the center of Bagà, where a few hours later the protagonists of the Salomon Ultra Pirineu 100K are expected to arrive, where Núria Picas will make her long-awaited return after four years of absence In the men’s category, Pau Capell’s participation in this race born in 2009, when it was still known only as Cavalls de Vent, stands out. A race that has already become a classic event on the test circuit, with thousands of people dreaming of doing like Pol Makuri. Or like Núria Picas, who returns accompanied by her whole family.
