Is he retiring? Mariana Pagon is clear about her desires for 2022

In the world of football, there is always talk that Argentina has Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, and Brazil currently has Pele and Neymar, and therefore many countries are proud of their numbers, but there is a sport that only Colombia can be proud of. Because he has the best.

With five world titles and three Olympic medals, Mariana Pagon has made it clear that she is the queen of BMX. Thirty-year-old athlete from Antioquia He decided to lower his track competitive edge a bit to devote time to other projects, such as his own company.

Just as they have grown into the world of cyclocross by leaps and bounds, they do so through their Power Club gym sites. It currently has seven institutions, five in Medellin and two in Bogotá, and in the latter city, it has opened its newest space to those who want to get their bodies and minds in shape.

“This is not just a gym, we are changing lives through sports, physical and mental well-being, but we are 360. Not just food, but transformation. Layers too OnlineWhere in the world are we there,” he said in a conversation with him week At the opening of its new headquarters.

After years of sports activity, which almost reached the limit of her physical ability, Mariana Pagon decided to take competitions more calmly in order to devote more time to her personal life. This yes, before the fear of many, He made it clear that he has not yet retired from racing, because it’s just a break.

“This year I want to devote a lot of time to myself and my family as well as to my husband. Time that I haven’t been able to spend in my sports career, now I have to lower the loads. I make time for these undertakings and for the personal part as well.”

Although she achieved the goals that had been set over the years, she left space to analyze what was going on in her head because “the truth is that not everything is perfect.” “There will be a lot of changes, ups and downs You will not be satisfied and you will have to face problems, remains. He pointed out the importance of mental health in the mental part.

Other than the fact that she was one of the “few athletes who felt happy when they postponed the Olympics” in Tokyo 2020, allowing her time to recover from some injuries, 2021 was an “extra year of great effort” at the moment “it hurts”.

“Arrival in Tokyo was not easy at all, it was a very complex challenge and it was more emotionally than physically exhausting. This also gives me tools to continue taking on new challenges.

At the beginning of this season she still feels physical discomfort, but that has not stopped her from participating in events and even winning them: “I am injured, but I am still in competition; I just got back from Guayaquil, I won there, I will run this weekend in Ubaté Then I will go to Europe and participate in the World Cup.”

At the beginning of 2022, Mariana was in Barcelona with the intention of visiting the family of her husband, Vincent Belloard. They benefited from their stay in the Catalan city, and decided to train Unaware that they are going to start the year very anxious because all their belongings have been stolen from the car.

Prior to the theft, “the calendar was completely different” for the Colombian cyclist because “she had two consecutive weekends in the US, with three races each weekend.” But since then “she had no North American visa (stolen)”, and then they were forced to “cancel those races and the Guayaquil races went out”.

“Visas from the UK are also leaving, so we are waiting for the process to get those visas for the first World Cup of this year,” he added.

“He’s very stubborn because the story, we probably don’t know, made us move the car three times, to three places, so we’d see it all the time. We took out our bags and backpacks so as not to leave them in the car, and they told us: Here they are stealing them and putting them in the car.. When we came back there were no bags, those for bicycles, and among those bags also papers, which are the most insistent of all because we have many consequences, but there we begin to process and solve them,” he said of what happened that day of the robbery.

Although that robbery made a huge impact, because he was in Europe and posted everything on social networks, it was not the first time that “others’ friends” did their job in the athlete’s life. “My bikes have already been stolen etc., only this, through social networks, is easy to detect. But yes, many things have already been stolen from me.”

Before heading to the Old Continent, Mariana Pagon will be taking part in several events this weekend, where she will compete and spend time with her followers. In the middle of this month, there will be a new confrontation at the Santiago Bernabeu between Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​the same date chosen by the organizers of the El Clásico Bike Challenge to unite the two most watched sports in Colombia.

Nearly 500 cyclists and 500 football fans will gather On March 20 in Sabana de Bogotá to celebrate the union of these two sports disciplines.

“I will be running the National Cycling Race in Opati, and from there I will go straight to the Classico Cycling Challenge, the first time that road cycling has been done alongside football. This weekend we will be doing a very cool photoshoot,” Mariana said of her schedule this weekend. With very nice guests, and then we’ll see those classics.”