They call her Paulita, a name so sweet, and her curls, her 1.56m height, but on the bike she is the devil, and when she was little even the boys feared her, and she competed against them, and always finished among the first, and her exploits were passed on from mouth to mouth like the songs of the deeds. “I impose myself, yes,” she says, strong, proud. “I always liked to compete with the boys, to give them a hard time, to be able to beat them. It is very difficult to beat a boy, but I have always had the illusion of achieving it. I like to work hard and for the results to come like this one has come.” She is 17 years old. She is runner-up in the junior world championship. She is Paula Ostiz Taco, from Orkoien, in the outskirts of Pamplona, and lives in San Jorge, next door, and on the banks of Lake Zurich, under the heavy rain that turns the slides into slippery slopes, she fights hard with the best juniors in the world, a year older than her, and they tremble. And soaked by the finish line, behind the barriers, her mother, Jennifer Taco, trembles with emotion. She is from Ecuador, from Guayaquil, a land so hard, and she came to Navarra 25 years ago to stay, work hard and raise three children. Antoni, Raúl and Paula. All three are cyclists, but the youngest, who started pedalling in races at the age of six, is the best. “The best thing about Paula is her perseverance,” says her mother. “I have educated my three children in the same way, teaching them to be positive, not to be afraid.”
Paula Ostiza Taco is not afraid. “I wasn’t afraid at all,” she says. There are three of them left in the last kilometres of the race that will end at the rainbow. With Ostiz Taco, the world number one, the British Cat Ferguson, who will be her teammate next year at Movistar, and the Slovak Viktoria Chladoñova, world mountain bike champion. They are two fearsome rivals, but the Navarrese doesn’t back down, she is restless throughout the race, parsley in all sauces, she doesn’t back down. She collaborates with them. She sharpens the knife. She waits for her moment. She plans to attack. To win like Alejandro Valverde, her idol, the cyclist she wants to be, wins. “I am an all-round cyclist. Aggressive. I liked the circuit, with short, explosive slopes,” she says. “I was preparing my attack, because I didn’t want to risk it in the sprint, but with 10 kilometres to go I noticed a cramp. I knew I could go for the gold medal, but with that cramp, if I pushed too hard my quadriceps could go up, and I preferred not to risk it. I had good legs and I was able to secure a medal. Being second in a World Championship as a first-year junior is an honour.”
In the three-way sprint she tries to take the lead but Ferguson, the Briton who also won the World Time Trial Championship a few days ago, easily outpaces her. The Slovakian, second in the World Time Trial Championship, tries to catch up but gives up on the line. “I dream of being absolute world champion, like Valverde,” says Ostiz Taco after her second great podium, after the gold medal in the European Time Trial Championship a few weeks ago. “Valverde had to work hard to achieve it. I hope to do the same, keep working, and one day I will achieve it.”
