Mountains to medals | Douglas Pate | TEDxCanillo

Mountains that shape our lives. Cycling has becoming an important part of Andorra ecosystem. How these sports people adapt to a new environment. Douglas Pate is a Scot, 16 years resident in Andorra and 34 years out of the UK. An international businessman, polyglot and sportsman who qualified from Bath University with a Mechanical Engineering with French degree, 25% of the degree was studied in French. His career took him into steel and oil, then to distribution in IT, food and professional beauty products.
Since 2013 one of Douglas’s main activities has been in “Emotional Communication” working with accountants, lawyers, technical startups, and lecturing at colleges and universities. A TEDx of 2017 gives insight to this field.
Since 2010 his primary activity has been that of a Life Admin Coordinator for top level professional cyclists, coordinating with their teams and managers to obtain their residencies in Andorra and look after their daily admin once resident. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

I see that every morning that’s just across the Valley from where I live and I wonder how often we ask ourselves how much to the the mountains that we live in andoran mountains affect the way we think affect the way that we live and create the person that we are I have the

Pleasure and the privilege to work with professional cyclists and although I’m going to make reference here to Road cyclist here in Andor we have Road cyclist mountain bikes we have cycl cross Champions we have um track Champions and we have a new community which has decided that Andor and the

Mountains is the place to live and for the last 12 to 15 years there is a new community within Andor of top cycling professionals a cyclist day a cyclist life is very structured it’s very focused it’s very hard and it’s very disciplined it’s four to five hours a

Day 5 to six days a week on the bike it’s massage it’s eat it’s sleep it’s eat again it’s sleep again it’s chat with the manager who might happen to live in Canada it’s a a life that has become um structured within a loneliness that I’d like to explain in the next

Couple of minutes or so the cyclist becomes a publicity board for the companies that they work with they work with because they’re contracted to race so they’re training they’re racing they’re eating they’re sleeping and they are a publicity for their sponsors a publicity for their team now they’ve chosen to come to

Andora for many different reasons and one of the simplest reasons is it’s a place that they can improve within the world in which they in within an environment can only give them a better uh ability to do their own job their job their office is the

Road the road is long and it’s hard these guys the chap that we see in the the photo here he came here when he was 19 he decided having become already a success in the UK he decided to come to andur to be able to go further with his own career

Now his life new culture new environment new language is a challenge for the youngster the cyclist life is hard I put this photo up here because this gentleman here this young lad this 20-year-old this photo was taken in 2022 having uh completed the Parry ruet which is regarded as one of the toughest

Races in the whole calendar of the professional cyclist and he’ crashed with 3 hours to go on his bike before he got to the Finish he was an important part of the team that he was uh Racing for and his team leader was second and he sent me that photo he said

This is one of the moments where I realize the decision that I had taken to become a cyclist was that it’s worst and it is best he actually said to me he doesn’t actually remember M of the last part of the race it’s a tough life because it can also take

Lives we hear about our friends of our acquaintances we read in the newspapers that the someone has died someone’s been hit by a car we’ve also had people dying in races and it’s one of these toughest things that the you have to deal with being a professional cyclist there’s another part to cycling

That we don’t often see in Andora it’s not something that really is a part of the mountain life and this is the track the track is one of the disciplines which uh the cyclists get up to the absolute highest speeds this photo I took a couple of weeks ago back in

Berlin and one of the races the guy hit 75.6 kilometers an hour average over 200 M now we think back to why have they come to the mountains to be able to get to high speeds you put your body under stress to put your body under stress you

Can’t always be at high speed the mountain gives the cyclist the ability to put his body under stress and yet at the same time um we’ve got the the incredible views that we get a cyclus when we get to the tops of these mountains we’re under stress the body’s always under stress we’re

Thinking can I get there and then we get to the top we look out and we think wow and even the professionals that are here they say to me quite intimately that living in Andor has given the ability to put the body their mind their whole life

Under stress and at the same time relax at the top of the mountain this particular young lady’s uh Paul and she’s actually the um the world champion gravel she won a couple of weeks ago that symbol is Zen I’ve had some of my clients say to me that crossing the border coming into

Andor gives them a moment of Peace gives them a Moment of Zen they’re close to home and the Border psychologically says now I can relax that’s something that when you were racing at 60 km an hour over the last 5 kilm about 5 to 6 cm away from

The others for 3 weeks in The Grand Tour toour of France for example which we know intimately here in andur the moments of Zen become more important for the elite athlete and I’d like to finish with a slide that when I was presenting this I thought my goodness me do we realize how

Many of the top Elite athletes we have on this slide there are 52 cyclists 23 nationalities and all of them are either World Champ Olympian champ Oceanic champ African champ or national champ and I only stopped and they’re all Resident and I only stopped because I didn’t have any more space on the

Slide thank you