Unzu and Capitn launched a virtual race to fight ALS
Juan Carlos Unzué and Jose Luis Capitan, two athletes who knew victory honey and now suffer from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), have launched a virtual race that will allow kilometers to be accumulated by bike (Unzué’s great passion) and running on foot (the sport in which the captain excelled) in order to raise funds for research In the fight against this neurodegenerative disease, for which there is no cure yet.
“We are 4,000 people in Spain in this team that I am part of,” Unzué explains in a statement. In these months, Juan Carlos Unzue and Capitan released messages of encouragement and held constant gatherings around the sport; The ex-footballer who talks about his beloved Osasuna or Barcelona and the former athlete who goes out madridismo or refers to Oviedo or Sporting de Gijón “adopted”, since he has lived in Asturias since 2007.
With the help of colleagues and family, they both launched this virtual race that also pursues a lofty vision of disease. The “Unzué y Capitán Contra la ELA” program will allow for a month, for €5 to register, to donate all their contributions to the Luzón Foundation, which fights against ELA.
The event, thanks to the popularity of Unzué, the goalkeeper who has defended the jerseys of Osasuna, Barcelona, Seville, Tenerife, Oviedo and others and who was also a coach at Numancia, Girona, Barcelona and Celta de Vigo, hopes to do so. Bringing together “a lot of famous Navarre friends, the football and cycling family certainly won’t fail (his brother Eusebio is the Movistar team manager)”.
The captain, who became a three-time runner-up in Spain in mountain racing, has run four European Championships with the Spanish team and remains the record-holder for the ascent to Angliru, the legendary Asturian port, confident to pull “a whole host of Olympic athletes, medalists in the championships world and European, who shared his sporting life with him and with his two brothers Manolo and Vicente, as well as athletes.”
As Juan Carlos Unzué points out, who has just presented his book: Juan Carlos Unzué. Whole Life: “We have to make noise, we have to listen, because ALS patients have many problems caused by the disease itself, so, in addition, public health departments and systems abandon us.”
Participants will have to download an app and will be able to accumulate kilometers as many times as they want, by bike or on foot, and in many cases running, but this can also be done on foot, the organizers explained.
Each time the user uses it, the user will choose the travel distance (there is a possibility of 5, 10, 15 and 20 km on foot, or 20, 30, 40, 60 and 80 km by bicycle). One of the goals of Juan Carlos Unzué and José Luis Capitán, is that apart from paying the fees and making as much fundraising as possible, registrants are traveling kilometers and uploading their videos and photos on their social networks, using the hashtag #UnzueyCapitancontralaELA, in order to achieve greater visibility for these The fight against disease.
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