A Peruvian woman quits her job in 2018 and joins a community dedicated to cycling in South America. It turns out that she’s not very fast, but she can do tricks on the bike. Her interest in artistic cycling has been awakened.
Gracia Sotomayor is the name of the young lady who has now fulfilled her unusual dream. “I wanted to know more about this sport,” she says. “But I didn’t expect everything to happen so fast.” From one day to the next, she turned her entire life upside down and soon became a proficient artistic cyclist.
The tale is all the more curious because this discipline is not practised in Peru, indeed in all of South America. And at almost 30 years old, on paper Gracia is much too old to start a promising artistic cycling career. The starting age is usually between just six and 10 years old.
Gracia is aware of this and knows that she won’t reach the upper echelons of artistic cycling. “That's not important to me at all. My learning process is different. I train because there’s nothing better than the feeling of being in tune with yourself and your bike and having complete control over your body.”
She also knows that it’s unlikely she’ll earn money through artistic cycling. At most, circus artists make a living from it. Victory bonuses, which are currently beyond Gracia, usually don’t even cover travel expenses.
Nevertheless, Gracia is sticking to her dream. At the time, the Peruvian was looking for contacts on Instagram. The active nations can be found almost exclusively in Europe and occasionally in Asia. But she found what she was looking for, especially on German-language sites.
In 2018, her path led her via Colombia to Spain. A friend gave her a plane ticket to Barcelona, but Spain is not an indoor cycling nation, either. Here, however, she learnt about the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships – the biggest annual event of artistic cycling and cycling artists – which were to take place in Belgium at the end of November 2018. There, Gracia dove into the fascinating world of indoor cycling for three days. “At the time, I cried with joy that I was allowed to watch,” she recalls.
This is where the now 34-year-old made contact with the international artistic bike family. “The scene isn’t very big so it was easy to meet someone at the UCI World Cup,” she says. She first meets the multiple Hungarian Champion Martin Schön, who guides Gracia to the German club VfH Worms. After a week watching, she hops onto the artistic bike.
In 2019, she competed in her first competition at regional level. Her next big goal, the 2020 UCI World Championships in Stuttgart (Germany), didn’t happen due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But a year later she competed in her maiden UCI World Championships in front of around 4,000 spectators. She’ll look to compete in the UCI World Championships in Belgium and next year in Glasgow.
She’s also the first participant from Peru to compete in the UCI World Cup. At the tournament in Schiltigheim (France) just a few days ago, she again finished last. Nevertheless, as usual, Gracia shines with happiness. The reward? A new personal best of 30.18 points. For over two weeks, Gracia had prepared with full focus and delivered an almost flawless performance, accompanied by her trademark smile during the program.
Gracia’s also a pioneer in international development work. Together with Indoor Cycling World Wide (ICWW), she wants to establish artistic cycling in South America. She’s translated the UCI rulebook into Spanish and, in the spring of 2022, Gracia spent several weeks in her home country in an ambassadorial role. In the Velodrome of Lima, she presented artistic cycling with workshops and demonstrations, helped by circus artists and bicycle groups.
Finally, Gracia wants to collate all her emotions and experiences in a book in the hope to inspire others. “Artistic cycling makes me feel so fulfilled, and for the first time I feel like I have the strength to do what I really want to do,” Gracia says emphatically. She comes from a society in which there are significant differences between women and men. "I've never questioned what I'm doing but never thought I had the opportunity. Usually, girls don't move out until they get married. But I moved out when I was 25 because I wanted to be more independent.”
It’s precisely this courage that she now wants to convey: “I want others to be able to feel what I feel. And I want to show others that they can live their dreams.”