The founder of ‘cycling for all’ has overcome lymphoma and intends to finish the Moroccan race with the Aural Team together with Abel Antón
MADRID, 20 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The popular cyclist Silvia González will face the double challenge of overcoming the “bitch” of suffering from cancer and ending the Aural Team led by the next edition of the Skoda Titan Desert in Morocco, from April 28 to May 3. athlete Abel Antón considered the most extreme mountain bike test in the world, something that, according to her, “can be done.”
Silvia González pronounces the six letters of ‘cancer’ without fear. She does it with contagious vitality, strength and energy. Neither the follicular lymphoma that she was diagnosed with in 2018 nor the months of chemotherapy nor the clinical trials nor the autologous bone marrow transplant that she underwent just three months ago have managed to get this 52-year-old from Madrid off the bicycle.
“It’s a passion,” says Silvia González in an interview with the press office of the Moroccan event, who will participate sponsored by the Aural Centros Auditivos team and accompanied by friends, journalists and the double marathon world champion, the man from Soriano. Abel Anton.
González recovered his love for cycling at almost 30 years old when he practiced spinning. He got bored and joined a club to ride cycle tours before founding the ‘Cycling for All’ initiative.
“I have always been a very daring woman in everything, but it is true that many times women need to feel supported. I think we demand a lot from ourselves to be able to go with a group. In fact, it happens to us in Cycling for All. Some women are afraid of if they are going to be able to keep up with the pace of the outing, but in the end these outings are for everyone,” he commented.
The Madrid cyclist was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma in 2018 following a fall while riding a bicycle going down the Navacerrada mountain pass. “I broke my hip because I fell on a bike. They detected follicular lymphoma and I spent a year waiting to see how it would develop. It progressed and in 2019 I was treated. I was treated for a year and it disappeared just before the pandemic, but Two years later it reappeared. This last year I have been in a clinical trial, also with chemotherapy. Now they have done an autotransplant and everything is now eradicated,” he said.
During treatment he never stopped getting on a bike. “No, no, I have never been without riding a bike. I don’t know how it sounds, but when the hematologist told me that it was curable, the first thing I asked him was if I could ride a bike. He told me that as long as my body let me , to do it. Luckily my body let me, even when I was having chemo,” he revealed.
The bike is his passion and it has helped him “a lot” in this process of fighting the disease. “I saw that, despite the treatment, I was able to continue riding, that I overcame the side effects of chemo with sports. I have had almost no side effects. The girls who went out with me were surprised at how I lasted,” she said.
González explained how the idea of competing in the Titan Desert in Morocco arose, with the support of Aural Centros Auditivos, Mondraker bikes, the sports equipment manufacturing company Murwall Sport, DHL, Enervit, Asistencias Willy and Quirón Salud.
“It is one of the emblematic tests and all the cyclists who do mountain biking have it there as a challenge, as something that at some point in their life they want to do. Among the group of friends we said: ‘Look, it’s a bitch to have cancer, but you keep riding your bike, so let’s show that it really can be done,'” he said.
His mother told him ‘Blessed bicycle, do what you want’ and his friends know his stubbornness. “I have a friend who tells me: ‘I know you’re going to do it, but it’s not the best time.’ In the end, I just received an autotransplant. It’s not the best time, but we have a great team, that of Aural Centros Auditivos. They have a project of examples of improvement and in this case it is mine,” he compared.
Aural ambassador and athlete Abel Antón pointed out that “in the heat he moves well.” In addition, she will be accompanied by journalists Gaspar Díez and Jesús Mínguez; Virginia Martínez de Murguía, team coordinator; coach Fran Martínez and Javier Montes, head of communication.
“We’re all a little crazy. The goal is to finish. To live an experience with the team, too. But in the end I’m very competitive and I’m going to be thinking: ‘If we push a little’ (laughs). But no, I’m not in shape to push. At least, finish, although I’m sure we’ll get some push there. Abel is super competitive, and I’m a big mouth, we’ll definitely push,” he stressed.
González’s “hairs stand on end” projecting the image of the goal in the last stage. “It will be the finishing touch to this whole process that I am going through. What would I like to remain? There is a need to tell that, even if you have cancer, you have to continue playing sports. It is not my personal story, that is to say people who don’t sink and who continue fighting. Then, I also fight to give visibility to women. I know many girls who tell me that they don’t know if they will be able to finish. I tell them yes, they can, and I do it with to give them that boost of confidence that sometimes I don’t know why they don’t have,” he concluded.
2024-03-20 14:13:40
#bitch
