"When they told me I was having heart surgery, I thought it was the end. Checkmate."

Barcelona"I've always been very competitive, maybe too much so. So what's happened to me lately has been tough. It felt like it was the end of my career," explains Josep Betalú (Amposta, 1977), one of the biggest names in Catalan cycling. This mechanic, who knows how to do whatever it takes with his hands, has had his fill of winning races on four different continents since making the jump to mountain biking at the age of 30, in 2010. Before that, he had also done road cycling, in addition to a thousand other jobs, outside of DJing or fixing cars. Thanks to cycling, he has traveled the world and spent time in Costa Rica, where he is famous. "There, people looked at me with their eyes wide open, because I am the way I come from and I say what I think," he says.

A four-time champion of the Titan Desert in Morocco, as well as races like the Ruta de los Conquistadores in Costa Rica, Betalú was still winning races at 45. "At my age, road cycling is no longer a challenge, but mountain biking or riding Titan in the desert is different," explains the Amposta native, who has always pushed his body to the limit. He's always fearless, whether he's blazing trails himself with a machete in the Costa Rican jungle or in the dunes of the Sahara, where there's a risk of getting stuck in the sand and "it's hard to rest properly in the tents." after each stage." A lifestyle he enjoys, which is why he kept competing. But at the 2024 Titan Desert, everything changed. "I was coming off an injury that kept me out of competition for eight months. But on the first day of Titan, I took the lead; it was beautiful. But on the second day, I heard a weight in my chest and was forced to withdraw due to an unexpected heart problem." The race doctors didn't hesitate: I couldn't continue and would have to undergo surgery for arrhythmias. "When they told me I would have heart surgery, I thought it was the end. Checkmate. It was very tough. In just a few hours, I went from being first and seeing that I was still strong to withdrawing," he recalls.

The call of a great champion

All of this led Josep to a new situation in his life: he didn't have the courage to continue competing; he saw that he had reached the end of his career a year earlier than expected. Until he received a call from Melchor Mauri. The Osona native, champion of the Vuelta a España in 1991 and one of the best Catalan cyclists of all time, is now the leader of the KH-7 cycling team, which participates in various endurance races. The team Betalú usually competes for. Melchor motivated me because I had no intention of ever competing again. In fact, I haven't competed since last year, since I left Titán. I'm used to always competing to win, and suddenly, everything changed. This is really what motivated me. Having a new role, helping others," he reasons.

For years, cyclists at KH-7 worked to help Betalú. Now he'll be Mauri's right-hand man, offering advice to riders like newcomers Luis Ángel Maté and Andrey Amador (former road racers), Pilar Fernández, and two-time champion Ramona Gabriel. "A lot of things happen there, in the desert. And I know them," he explains. "I have other options in life, and I've pretty much figured it out. I'm someone who does everything I do to the fullest. And if I can't do something to the fullest, I just don't do it. Cycling makes me feel happy. All these months I've been without training, wow, they've been a man. I was missing something. It will be something. A second home, as this team unites professionals who want to win with riders who are going to try to finish, like brothers Sergio and Javier Torres, chefs at a three-Michelin-star restaurant, or athletes who are part of charity projects like this year's." from the Guttmann Foundation or how Lester Fernández, the Cuban-born Catalan cyclist who competes with an 81% disability"The first year I competed with Lester on the team, I had a mechanical problem in the first stage and was struggling. I chatted with him that night and he helped me a lot; he made me feel lucky. The next day I won," recalls the Amposta native. Professionals learn from Betalú, but he learns from Lester.