Eloi Palau, from almost losing his fingers and sight, to playing in the World Cup

Eloi Palau (24 years old) these days are on Abu Dhabi with hopes of declaring himself world champion in bicycle trials. Eloi, three times top 3 in the UCI ranking and junior world champion in 2016 and absolute world bronze in 2021, will fight these days to be one of the best at the moment of truth and has options to compete to become champion in the testing world, a dream that almost completely disappeared in the month of August 2019. Then, Eloi traveled to Italy to play a World Cup in Val di Sole and after the competition he went on an excursion with his friends Pol Tarrés, Marc Terol and Sergi Llongueras.

Little could they imagine that the World War I mine explosion in a cave their lives almost ended. Of that day, in which he was born again, he reminded MD that “I was thrown back a few meters by the explosion. I saw that a lot of blood was coming out of my face, the fingers of my right hand were very bad, my legs were bleeding and they burned me “I couldn’t see well. Everything is very blurry and I can’t hear anything, just a very loud beeping sound. When I realized something had exploded, everything went blank.”

+ THE NEWS OF THE MINING EXPLOSION THAT AFFECTED HIM

Over time Eloi Palau He managed to put this fateful day behind him. He is back in competition and this weekend he will fight to become world champion in the sport he loves. “I’m really looking forward to face this World Championship in Abu Dhabi. Very motivated and eager to do well. I have one more chance to show the level I have at the moment, although I think with another month of preparation I can still fix some details that I still need to improve. The preparation for this World Cup has been up and down. I started the season with a very good feeling and very ready physically, until as a result of falling during the World Cup held at the Vic took me two months off work to recover from a knee injury. After these two months stopped, I resumed my training routine and the truth is that I reached the level faster than I expected, although as I said, I still have a few weeks to be 100%”.

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Eloi Palau believes that it is not because of quality that he cannot be with the best – “from my point of view, I am one of the most complete riders in terms of technique and power, so I consider this my strong point, with at speed within the zones” – and he regrets that despite being one of the best drivers he cannot make a living from his sport. “You can dedicate yourself professionally to the trial bike, but it is necessary to “find your life” because nowadays it is difficult to find good Sponsors who will help you during the season. I finished my degree in Coffee and This 2022-2023 academic year I started working as a coach and physical trainer in Ripollès Sports Technification Center (CTER) from the hand of Catalan Cycling Federationa project in which I took part as a student from 2013 to 2016 and now I am very excited to be involved again as a trial bike technician”.

Due to the importance of the mine incident where he was involved in the incident of Val di SolePalau acknowledges that “it was a hard blow both physically and mentally. It is not easy to recover from an accident like this and you need strength and patience, but little by little with the help of those close to me and especially my family we got through It. I came back to compete a year and a half later with very poor form, but with continued work I reached a competitive level again”.

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And he doesn’t consider himself lucky. “I don’t think lucky is the word, yes obviously I was lucky and in spite of everything I recovered almost 100%, but I think what this accident helped me the most was giving value to those everyday things and what is being done in the moment that many times, if not always, is not given importance. So now I try to think about it and be aware of it”.

For class it won’t be, and neither will it be for desire, especially after competing Abu Dhabi: “I’ve never competed in Abu Dhabi and I haven’t been! Therefore, I’m eager to get there and do a good job”.