Idemticos ambassador Christian Silva, a lesson in perseverance in La Leyenda de Tartessos

More than 250 kilometres of route and some 5000 metres of accumulated positive altitude gain marked the four demanding days of mountain biking proposed by the 2023 edition of La Leyenda de Tartessos, an emerging mountain bike event held between last Thursday and this Sunday in the province of Huelva, in which Idemticos ambassador Christian Silva took part. A formidable performance of the Galician based in Torrejón de Ardoz, who has formed a couple (the race is disputed under this formula) with Zoilo López.

Silva had to manage some friction from his prosthesis (“I was so excited going down that I didn’t realise it was rubbing me”, he said after the first stage), a breakage of it in the final stage, and a heavy fall in the second section that caused him several injuries, left him bruised and threatened to leave him out before the arrival of the queen stage, with start and finish in Valverde del Camino and up to 1,000 metres of accumulated altitude difference in its last thirty kilometres.

“We were on a fast path, without stones, I went wrong on one of the steps and suffered a hard fall on the right side of my body, taking a heavy blow to my hip. After a while I pulled myself together and we got back on the bike, gradually picking up the pace to get back up a few positions. The blow was strong. Saturday had started with a chance of not going out, but ended up being a great day on the bike with a good pace. Once the body was warmed up, the legs started to turn well and the good feeling came back. Although I had some discomfort, we ended up enjoying a tremendous stage,” he says.

“I’m still feeling tired, trying to internalise everything a bit, but it was a blast, without a doubt. In the end we were in a UCI race, with a tremendous demand and a tremendous level, technical and with all kinds of terrain. The pity was that crash in the second stage, although fortunately I didn’t break anything, and that this Sunday in the time trial I broke my prosthesis, a material that suffers a lot and has a lot of wear and tear in these races, but I’m more than satisfied with the result. And I was proud to be able to represent all the people with functional diversity in this race. In the end we have always moved in the middle of the table and at a very good pace”.