Juan José Florián, ‘Mochoman’: “We have a Nairoman, a Superman… Why not an amputee superhero?” | Cycling | Sports

Juan José Florián was a teenage FARC guerrilla and volunteer soldier in the Colombian army. At the age of 30, a bomb left him crippled, without arms, without a leg, one-eyed, deaf. His scars are the precise tattoo of the violence that has marked the history of Colombia in recent decades, and hope always. At 41, he is a Paralympic cyclist of magnificent level who, despite the lack of support from the Colombian Olympic Committee, desperately aspires to participate in the Paris Paralympic Games and a motivational speaker. He wanted to die and he wants to live. He wore the Movistar jersey, which sponsors him in Colombia, and last Sunday he was one more in the training of his Movistar WorldTour teammates, and he amazed Alejando Valverde, Nairo and company, almost more than because of his vital adventures because of his ability to endure with them, despite the fact that they attacked him mercilessly to test him. “We kind of lowered him and they squeezed him. And there was one of the bosses there who brought me to 70. And I, damn, man, you come to 70″, he remembers. “Valverde, surprised, told me, wow, it can’t be. How do you do it? How do I do it? With desire. What we need is desire. “We need the opportunity.” He is Mochoman, a superhero with stumps for arms, a prosthetic leg and a glass eye, and he pedals.

Ask. Did you choose the name?

Answer. No, friends. The friends in the midst of the bullying that they did to me and that revived me.

Q. An irony?

A. That. It comes from how my friends made fun of me. And there we started and we said, Colombia has Nairoman, we have Superman, Toro de Urrao [Rigo Urán], to the Gaviria Cohete, we have all these manes, and in Colombia we have many mochos, too many mochos. A Mochoman was missing to ride the bicycle. And there it comes out.

Q. Who are those people who made fun of you and you call them friends?

A. They were the companions from the army rehabilitation center. All tired after the battles. Yes, yes, because one believes that he is the only unlucky one in life, then he feels depressed because of that. But noooo. In other words, I am neither the first nor the last. When I go and meet more amputee soldiers who shake me and laugh, I am transformed. Those things little by little fed me, fed me, and I stopped crying, complaining, asking for more, and I started offering myself. What can I do with the little I have? What do you want to become, dude? That’s what I told myself, screaming. And he gave me a hard time [me insultaba]What am I going to become? And she cried. What do I want to be in life?

Q. Tell me how you ended up there, in that hospital.

A. I will start from the beginning. I come from a peasant family, very humble, hard-working, and a fighter in the area of ​​Granada, Meta, in the Ariari region. I always grew up in the middle of the Colombian armed conflict. My mother has a very small farm and we grew papaya there. Miller, my older brother, went to the market one day and didn’t come back. My mother investigated, he asked, and in the end we found out that he had been drafted for mandatory military service. And there a sad story is unleashed, a persecution, because in those years, I am talking about 1996, it was a tenacious sin for a son of a peasant family to be part of the army, and even more so where there was control by the lords of the FARC. When I reached my adolescence, unfortunately, I was recruited by the FARC and one of the arguments of that character who took me out of my house was because my mother had given a son to the State, so I had to give a son to the revolution, to the cause. , just like that, so easy and calm for them.

Q. And how did you join the guerrilla?

R. It was a duel, a pain. First they tear you away from the family, right? They take you away the hard way and lead you to put things in your mind that you would never think of. I was a teenager who all I knew was working, cultivating, scything, picking corn…

Q. How did you survive it?

A. I had a dream and I clung to it, and it was that I wanted to be a soldier just like my brother. I analyzed a lot, I analyzed, I observed what the others who tried to desert did and those who hunted and killed, why they were discovered, what was the mistake they made… Many, many tried to desert.

Q. This is a bit of the conflict that the movie Monkeys reflected, right?

R. Yes, yes, yes, it reflected something like that a bit. There were parts where the peasants were very collaborative with them. Or they did it because they felt connected to them, out of necessity or fear. There were many variables. I had it very clear all the time, where I wanted to go, until months later when I managed to desert this group. I achieved it in the middle of a combat in Villarrica, Tolima. They were shooting at us from a helicopter. I hid under the canopy of a tree, covering myself well. I found the perfect opportunity and ran, I arrived at a house, I made the residents lie down on the ground pointing the rifle at them. I got some civilian clothes and turned myself in at an army post. They believed me and fed me. I thought I was going to return home. Was 16 years old. I think we all want to return home, right? When you go on a trip, we all want to return home. Let his mother hug him, let him make her appetizers for him, be there where you grew up, sleep in your bed and let his mother consent to him…

Q. And you couldn’t return?

A. The commander told me, listen, Juan José, at 16 years old he has a powerful enemy and he cannot return home. He’s going to be under protection. And I was under protection until I was 18 and fulfilled my dream of being a soldier. I served in the military and continued for 10 years as a professional soldier.

Juan Jose Florian, Mochoman, in soldier’s uniform.Movistar Press Colombia

Q. Did you use the army uniform for a personal vendetta with the FARC?

A. I evaluate a lot and sometimes I reflect. I believe that my dream was to go one step further, and in that dream I allowed hatred to enter, resentment to enter for what they had done to me. Although I feel that I was a soldier who, in the face of the bandit, the enemy, I was noble when they surrendered, when they surrendered, because I saw myself there when they did that. So, when they surrendered, when they surrendered, I tried to give them that support, to give them peace of mind. I lived those experiences and at the age of 28 I was hit by an explosive device. I suffered multiple amputations, my arms, my leg, my right eye…

Q. How did it happen?

A. They put a bag of explosives in the garden of my house. It was because my mother sold the farm where we grew up. And people said, no, that lady has a lot of money, those people have a lot of money, they gave them a million. So, I don’t understand what those gentlemen have in their heads, but they demanded a lot of money from my mother as a revolutionary tax, and there was a lot of persecution, until it seemed easy for them to leave an explosive device. And I was the lucky one who moved that bag, or squeezed it, I don’t remember, I just know that I flew into atoms, and my brother held my head and I screamed at him, ‘kill me! Shoot me! I can’t live like this…!’, and I fainted.

Q. But here he is still, and he lives…

A. I was in a coma for 12 days, I survived to tell the story, and today I pedal for my dreams. But I spent some time wishing I would die. I thought about committing suicide at times, but I backed away thinking that if I didn’t do it right and didn’t die, it would end up even worse. I even wanted to learn to walk quickly so I could commit suicide better… I entered a world of thoughts where there was a positive one, but a negative one. One told me, why are you going to live without hands? Why live without a leg? You are of no use. But there was another one who told me, listen, yes, you have to live, because you have a mother, you have a daughter, you have to live. And although I heard the negative voice all the time, I held on to that and said, yes, I want to live. And I lived, I survived, I survived to tell the story. He was 30 years old.

Mochoman, training last Sunday with Samitier.Prensa Movistar C

Q. How did you end up as a Paralympic cyclist?

A. After my rehabilitation, before getting to the bicycle, I was a swimmer for four years with the armed forces. Thanks to sport I was able to stop taking medication for depression, for sleeping, for everything… And well, one day I fell in love with the bicycle. And five years ago Movistar gave me the opportunity to wear their uniform. And they believe in my dream. We need an opportunity. And now we have to take advantage of it. All people have opportunities. I believe that the greatest is to have life, not to have its limbs. Have a family. Have dreams. You don’t have to abandon them.

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2024-02-11 04:15:00
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