"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.

At the Guttmann Institute headquarters in Badalona, ​​​​high in the mountains next to Can Ruti Hospital, a dozen wheelchair-bound patients took out their phones and took photographs of the team preparing to compete in the Titan Desert, the demanding cycling race that crosses the Sahara Desert. For the first time, a Guttmann team will participate. "It's nice to see how other patients look at what people who have been through difficult times like them can achieve," says Dr. Alex del Arco, a traumatologist at the Institute. Del Arco, who is passionate about sports, participated in the Titan Desert in 2015 and stated that he would not return after suffering from gastroenteritis. Now he will return with someone else.

The life of Martí Álvarez (Barcelona, ​​2001) changed when he was three years old and diagnosed with a rare disease called Guillain-Barré, which left significant after-effects on his legs and back. He also suffered from severe scoliosis and kyphosis as a result. Doctors even doubted whether he would be able to walk during his long stays at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital. Years later, Martí has ​​studied international business, works at a consulting firm and is tackling the Titan Desert for the second time, the demanding cycling race in the Sahara Desert that already ended in 2024. Now he's back with the aim of raising money to help the Hospital where he was treated so well.