Until 2019 Gorka Sorarrain (Tolosa, 1996) was a good basketball player in the EBA league. The pandemic came and, like everyone else, he locked himself in his house, but not without first getting a roller to continue playing sports. Then something woke up inside him, and after confinement he decided to change the ball for the bicycle, specifically the one he had bought for 500 euros at the age of 23, when he received his first salary as an electronic engineer. Thus, at the age of 25, one of the most veteran amateurs in the Basque Country, began a completely incredible adventure that has led him to compete one-on-one with the best in the Spanish Championship, held in June. Now, at the age of 27 and with little experience on the bike, he has turned professional after signing for Caja Rural.
Sorarrain's story, if it had happened in the United States, would make for an epic movie script. Once the pandemic ended and he was able to shoot outdoors, he started signing up for cycling tours and the results were surprising. He had no team and no expectations, but decided to federate as an independent. He started in the Euskaldun tournament and less than a month and a half had passed when he was signed by the Cafés Baqué team. He made the first jump and took his first wins at Berriatua in June and soon after at Gernika.
An engineer in the morning and a cyclist in the afternoon, Sorarrain got up at four in the morning to start the daylight hours and had to ask for a holiday to be able to compete in Portugal.
His good performance in 2022 allowed him to sign for the Angolan team Baí-Sicasal. But his routine didn't change an inch. Thus, he decided to sign up for the Spanish road championship. And what happened changed his life. After 186 kilometers of steep terrain, Sorarrain reached the last kilometers in the group that was chasing Oier Lazkano (Movistar), the eventual champion of Spain. With 500m to go, he attacked, but on the finish line Carlos Ayuso, Alex Aranburu and Jesús Herrada, World Tour cyclists, overtook them. He was only 12 seconds short of victory.
This action had such a repercussion that Caja Rural decided not to look at his DNI but rather his virtues on the bicycle, and Sorarrain had to ask for a leave of absence from work. "I started competing a year ago and I would never have imagined this. I know that I can still make another big leap, since I had not become professional", he explains in statements to Caja Rural. "Now I can sleep my hours, wake up calm... I've only been there for a short time and I feel like I'm on vacation. I get up later, train in the morning and lead the life of a professional", he says after so much silent work.
