Pol Makuri Redoladthe first Spaniard with cerebral palsy to attend the Paralympic Games, He closed his participation in the Beijing Winter Games (China) with a twenty-second place in the middle-distance cross-country skiing event. Makuri ran the 12.5km freestyle in 52:08, a long way from the gold he Chinese Wang Chenyang won, which stopped the clock at 33:07. The silver went to Frenchman Benjamin Daviet and the bronze to another host, Jiayun Cai.
The race was very tough due to changing snow and sweltering heat at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center. “It was a tough race in which I suffered a lot, both because of the morphology of the circuit, as well as because of the heat and the snow conditions, but I have shown that with desire, enthusiasm and effort we can be on the starting line and compete in classic style”, said Pol, at the end of the race.
In Zhangjiakou, supporting Pol, was Julián Rebollo, president of the Sports Federation for People with Cerebral Palsy and Acquired Brain Injury, to which the Catalan athlete belongs, and Miguel Sagarra, general secretary of the Spanish Paralympic Committee. Pol Makuri, the great reference of Paralympic cross-country skiing in Spain, was born with hemiparesis, a type of cerebral palsy that affects the right side of his body.
At the closing ceremony, to be held in the so-called ‘Peking Nest’, the same stadium that hosted the 2008 Summer Games, Pol Makuri will be the Spanish flag bearer.
