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A calm man flies on a bicycle through the streets of Madrid

2020-04-02T02:54:49.641Z


The Spanish-Nigerian Courage Adams is a prodigy of BMX, a sport on the edge where he finds "balance and inner peace". The streets of the capital are the training ground for its amazing tricks


When you walk into the apartment of a young BMX star - a sport consisting of making amazing pranks with a bike - sponsored by a brand of sneakers adored by teenagers and by an energy drink emporium; when you access your home in the morning, and receive your NBA clash of hands, and appreciate your splendid African smile, and see that on TV you have video clips of ostentatious American rappers, despite immediately noticing their simplicity and that It is a crack that does not go of ghost, what is not expected is that snooping in his things while they take photos he will find a book - The monk who sold his Ferrari, by Robin Sharma - that reveals to us that this phenomenon of an extreme show has the soul of an existentialist in search of balance.

"Courage, what's this book about?"

"It's self-help." And it is one of my favorites.

Courage Adams (Benin City, Nigeria, 1996) is one of the great emerging figures of BMX, acronym for bicycle motocross, a practice born in California in the 1970s that today represents a global business of more than 5 billion dollars annually (almost 4.5 billion euros), according to an analysis by the Market Study Report, and it has been an Olympic sport since the 2008 Beijing Games.

Nigerian and Spanish, that's Courage; or, more specifically, from Benin and Pamplona. First his father, Moisés, arrived in Pamplona, ​​and then, in 2005, his mother, Evelyn; his sisters, Faith and Lisa, and him. From his homeland he keeps the memories of a life harder than the Spanish, although in his case with the basic needs covered, and separate cuts on his cheekbones that made him small to mark his region of belonging. It also carries its "favorable genetics," he says. Of medium height, its upper trunk is an inverted pyramid of a fortress that is not easy to describe.

Adams pirouettes next to the Prado Museum. CARLOS SPOTTORNO

"How would you describe it?" I ask our videographer.

-I dont know. The other day a friend was talking to me about someone with a great physique and she said: "It's Biblical!"

Courage, shy, smiles and tells us that it is time to leave home to go BMX in Madrid, where he moved three years ago to give more momentum to his career.

"Come on, we're going to Congress to make laws," he jokes.

Courage Adams. CARLOS SPOTTORNO

The Plaza de las Cortes, designed by the Portuguese Pritzker Prize Álvaro Siza, is one of his favorite places to exercise in his specialty, the BMX Urban Freestyle; in Spanish: I take my bike, I go out on the street and I start to make impossible moves, trying not to disturb the rest of the citizens and leaving everyone who comes across me doing the same thing, my crazy and fantastic moves.

"Mother of God, what you have done!" A young boy who wanders in the plaza at noon before the recent state of alarm yells at his friends.

We ask the gang to put adjectives to what they see and say about each other: "Unbelievable, impossible, the hell man, very handsome and brrrrutal", like this, with lots of mistakes.

Courage loves the little square in front of the National Parliament because its minimalist lines and benches are ideal for jumping and sliding, and it also finds a stupendous obstacle to do pirouettes in its solemn central statue, dedicated to the Prince of Spanish Sugar Mills. After executing on the pedestal of the author of Don Quixote a jump called bunny hop, I comment:

"You are jumping on Cervantes."

"Yes, I am aware," he replies.

Johnny, a regular from the plaza, greets him in passing and says to two colleagues in their twenties: “This kid is superfluous . It is in the top ten in the world. The fucking thing is that he has been asking for the Spanish passport for years and they have not given it to him . ”

Despite having been in Spain since the age of seven, Courage has a residence permit, but is still awaiting nationality. "I feel helpless," he says. This has prevented him until now from traveling to the United States to compete in the best BMX events, his dream to give Spain a gold in the Olympic Games. Its first mentor, Eneko Navarro, 37 years old and pioneer of this sport, foresees that his future arrival in America "will be a revolution". “His is very jevi, really. He is capable of doing whatever he wants, ”explains the man on the phone who introduced the silent boy to his gang who was gawking at his jumps. "It does not have limits. One of his specialties is a trick that I have been trying to do for a quarter of a century and that I have not succeeded nor will I achieve ”.

The trick is called nose and is to roll on the front wheel. Courage rehearses it on a ramp at the back of the Prado Museum, in front of a Polish couple who have stopped to enjoy it, and follows his own until, after hitting a huge jump on a staircase designed by Rafael Moneo (he is comfortable in the spaces conceived by geniuses of architecture), two policemen who had been turning a blind eye tactfully ask us to cut ourselves a little.

The day is over and Courage Adams leaves with his bike, with which he says he has "a love relationship that I can't explain" and that "fills him with inner peace". "Without it," he adds with maturity, "I feel empty." This young man with herculean muscles, bravery as an acrobat and multiple ex officio scars all over his skin affirms that the bike has taught him everything about life. To continue standing when it seems impossible and to fall without killing oneself when it is no longer possible to stay upright. That in BMX - that in life - it is as important to know how to maintain balance as to know how to lose it.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-04-02

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