Stefany Cuadrado: the jewel of speed, the world champion who lost table tennis and won cycling

While Colombia and the world were threatened by the pandemic of Covid-19, in Caucasia, a hot Antioquian town located in the lower Cauca, its inhabitants were desperate due to confinement.

The order was to stay indoors to avoid contagion, to prevent the emergency rooms of clinics, hospitals and medical centers from collapsing and to prevent people from continuing to die.

Let’s pedal

The lockdown was very hard all over the planet and fear took hold of people. In Caucasia, little by little, its inhabitants began to go out in search of ‘breathing fresh air’, of not feeling like they were in a prison.

Jaime Espinosa He was one of the Caucasians who couldn’t stand being locked up one more day and started going out on his bike. Well, he was one more, because the coach of the Cuacasia Cycling School club joined some of the locals who took their bikes out onto the streets and went out to buy something at the store or simply to escape the confinement.

During these outings, it was discovered that Stefany Lorena Cuadrado Florez, a diamond in the rough, a cyclist who has an immense future, who already has four gold medals and one silver in the Junior Track World Championships: one in Cali last year when she won the keirin, another in the speed of the same competition in Luoyang, China this year, in the 500m standing start and the last one in the keirin. The silver medal was in the speed event last year in the capital of the Cauca Valley.

“Everyone was rushing off to ride their bikes and we had several children who needed to go out and train. One of them, John Esteban Beltranone of those difficult days, he told me that he had seen a woman with good pedaling and asked me if I could invite her to practice, I said yes,” he told THE TIME the DT.

Beltrán took Cuadrado, who was not so convinced about practicing cycling. She had been one of the best table tennis players in the municipality, and she knew how to ride a bicycle, thanks to the outings with her mother, Eliana Florezand with his dadYuber Squarebut nothing more.

Espinosa says that although Stefany knew the minimum about cycling, she was lacking. “She had no idea how to handle the technique and the first thing we did was to insist on that on the road bike and then on the track bike. She learned quickly,” said the coach.

Espinosa points out that Cuadrado was determined to learn. He left table tennis and started cycling. His cadence improved and in the first training sessions of 20, 30 and even 80 kilometers on the road he demonstrated that he could have a good pedal stroke.

“We went to the 2021 Intercollegiate Road and Track Championships and won gold in the 500m and 200m, so it became a reality.”

Caucasia is 75 metres above sea level and the nearest mountain prize is about 100 kilometres away, so cyclists from the region are born to be sprinters or sprinters and Stefany Lorena was no exception.

The young woman quickly took part in races in Caucasia, won some, but performed well in the Advanced Development Project, (PAD), a programme in which new talents are discovered.

The coach emphasizes that Cuadrado worked hard on the game, something that he assimilated very quickly, so much so that in 2021, a year after arriving at the club, he had his first experience in Medellin.

Stefany Cuadrado was invited by the Antioquia Cycling League to work on her bike at the Medellín velodrome for a week and returned to her homeland more enthusiastic.

“She started to measure up and realized that cycling was her thing. We went to the 2021 Intercollegiate Road and Track Championships and she won gold in the 500 and 200 meters, so it became a reality,” said Espinosa, the coach who gave the now multiple world champion a helping hand.

From the house

Cuadrado Flórez was born on May 6, 2006 in the Pajonal Clinic of Caucasia, Nine months after Eliana found out she was pregnant and after a normal process, without setbacks.

She was called Stefany because her mother liked that name, they named her Lorena to remember her aunt, whom she never knew, her father’s sister who died tragically.

Her childhood years were normal, without problems. She grew up next to her brother, Steven, who is older than her, and with her working parents. Eliana is a public accountant, while Yúber works as one of the operators of the transport company Coonorte.

Stefany Lorena finished primary school in the Los Sauces School of Caucasia and went on to do high school at the Institution Caucasia High School Educationfrom which he graduated with some difficulties.

When he started cycling and had to travel to competitions and training camps, he was given problems at school to keep up with his studies.

Her parents and coach asked her several times to be allowed to present her work and catch up on her subjects when she returned, but the school refused. However, she had so many successes that the faculty was convinced that they had to help her and she graduated from high school.

Today, Stefany hopes to finish this cycle of travel and racing to concentrate on the second semester of business administration, a career that began virtually at the Catholic University of the North.

“She was a good student. Although in 11th grade it was difficult because of the school, which presented problems for her to catch up, but she was there on graduation day and that was the best for her and for us,” said Eliana, proud of what her daughter has done.

Tough game

She has not had any serious injuries while cycling. While playing table tennis she fell during training and fractured her left arm. She had to undergo surgery, but her recovery was good and quick.

“Stefany is a good friend, a great talker. Well, quite a lot, among her friends, but not with strangers. As for cycling, I think it’s because I trained a lot and my husband was an amateur cyclist,” Eliana Flórez told EL TIEMPO.

We traveled from Caucasia to Medellin, but the journey is very long and now I work far away, so seeing each other has been complicated and I am worried about the food issue.

Due to life’s circumstances, due to fate, the Cuadrado Flórez family is divided, but not because of problems, but because of the normal circumstances that usually happen.

Esteven lives in Medellín, Yúber is still in Caucasia and Stefany has been in the capital of Antioquia since last year under the command of the technical director of Colombian track, John Jaime Gonzalez, while Eliana is a teacher in the area Buenavista, municipality of Buriticá, Tabacal district.

“We don’t see each other much, because access to where I am this year is difficult. Only on Saturdays do the transports come and go and it takes me about six hours to go and another six to come back,” Eliana said with some nostalgia.

What worries her most is her daughter’s diet. Stefany Lorena has a hemoglobin deficiency and needs a special diet.

Eliana says that she has to constantly eat broth made from birds, liver, and viscera, but at the moment it is difficult for her because she does not live with her.

“She is undergoing treatment, but young people do not worry about that, about their diet, and that makes me think,” she said.

The hardest thing the family has experienced is the distance. Caucasia is 6.5 hours from Medellín and although Yúber ‘pulls his strings’ to have transportation, he can’t always be by Stefany or Esteven’s side.

“When she left for Medellin, the separation process was hard. We traveled from Caucasia to Medellin, but the journey is very long and now I work far away, so seeing each other has been complicated and I am worried about the issue of food,” said Eliana.

Prepared

Yuber is a little more relaxed. He says that what Stefany has done does not surprise him and he knows that she can go far in the sport.

The proud father confirms that cycling runs in the family, and that his daughter’s skills on cranks and pedals are inherited.

She says that she used to ride a bicycle and that the people she went out with to train were the ones who formed the club that Stefany joined in 2020 to take her first steps towards stardom.

“For now she is a junior, she has won important things and we know that when she reaches the senior category everything will be different. We trust in her wisdom, in how mature she is despite her youth,” said Yuber.

People who know Stefany Lorena Cuadrado Flórez are not surprised by what she has done. They say that the champion who lost the table tennis and won the cycling always showed herself to be a person who goes forward, who achieves what she sets out to do, thanks to the fact that she makes decisions at the right time, since she is a person who demands the most from herself.

Lisandro Regifo

Editor of EL TIEMPO

@lisandroabel