One Fast Mother! Marlies Mejias
Marlies Mejías is one of the most explosive riders in any women's event - be it on the road or on the track. Even when she doesn't have a number pinned to her back, she doesn't slow down much in life at all, as her priorities are being, first and foremost, a mother, as well as a mentor for her daughter and advocate for Cuban athletes.
Even though the word 'deceleration' is not in her physical repertoire, either in English or Spanish, a mid-summer break at the end of July was well-deserved from all the trips she has taken to various podiums. The running count for the Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY28 sprinter stood at 34 top 3s from February to early July, including stages and one-day race wins, omnium and classification titles as well as track success.
This year has been a monumental year for Marlies, personally and professionally. Among all her hardware, she swept the road race and time trial titles in Cuba, the first time she had competed on home soil in seven years.
And she wants to compete for Cuba again, this time at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
"She's equally dominant on the road and on the track, with unmatched tactical intelligence and race execution. She not only serves as a role model for girls and boys across Cuba, and beyond, but also advocates for Cuban athletes through mentorship, equipment support and visibility. And she balances motherhood with this leadership and high-performance racing," Nicola Cranmer, her team owner and manager, told Cyclingnews.
After winning a silver medal at the Pan American Track Championships in Paraguay this spring, she had three of the team's four victories at the Tour of Newport News in Virginia, including the omnium title. She also swept both races at the long-running Amazon Armed Forces Cycling Classic and then won six of 11 races at Kwik Trip Tour of America's Dairyland.
One of Cuba’s brightest talents on a bike as a teenager, winning her first medal at the Cuban road nationals in 2010 as a 17-year-old, she continued with a run of medals at Pan American Championships on the road and represented Cuba on the track at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. She then became the first Cuban woman living in the country to sign a professional cycling contract with an international team.
Who could stop her trajectory for success on the bike? It turns out her national federation shut her down, but not for what she expected. Her world changed seven years ago, and she's had an interesting journey to her home in Salem, Virginia, today.
Mejías grew up in a rural and remote setting in Cuba. She shared her first bike with her sister, and because she was "very fast", her mother sold the bike. But soon after at age 13, she found her way into a cycling academy.
"My mother bought my first bicycle for a few Cuban pesos. It wasn't a cycling bike, it was a red 20-inch bike, one that could fold in half. On that bike, my sister and I would ride around the neighbourhood at full speed. Shortly after, my mother sold the bike because she said we rode very fast everywhere," Marlies told Cyclingnews.
"We didn't ride our bikes for a while, but then some coaches were looking for kids at the school we attended to go to the cycling academy, and we said yes, secretly from my mother. Well, she supported us, [but] my sister got sick and I was the only one who continued. At the academy, they gave out old bikes to use, and I used that one to go to the Nationals."
In 2007, she won the Cuban Junior National Championship and was able to attend the national academy in Havana. She went to the Pan American Championships as a junior in 2010 after earning a silver at the Cuban road nationals, and then the next year she earned a UCI scholarship at the World Track Centre. She also graduated from Giraldo Córdoba Cardin University, Havana, Cuba, with a degree in physical education in 2011.
"At the World Track Centre, there things didn't go as I thought, so I returned to Cuba, and as always the demands at the Cycling School were always high and I was always committed to what I did, so I trained as hard as I could to go to the World Cups, and there is my favorite medal, silver in the omnium in a World Cup."
In 2015, she won the Caribbean Games road race and the next year she won the Pan American road race championship, ahead of USA's Coryn Labecki. By 2017, she had her first pro contract. She looked for an opportunity to earn money with her bicycle, as economic conditions in Cuba were not getting better.
"In 2017 I was the first Cuban cyclist hired by a professional team, so I left Cuba to compete with the Weber Shimano Ladies Powers. This team brought me to the US for three months to do crits, it was great that year," she recalled.
"I didn't know how incredible the crit environment was, then I joined Nicola's team [Sho-Air TWENTY20] in 2018, this was a different team full of victories and champions, I wanted to be like them," her first stint with Cranmer's programme, now Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY28. That first season in the US, she won 12 one-day races and added 12 more top 10s, including on stages at Santos Women's Tour and Herald Sun Tour.
"Then I found out about my pregnancy and the National Cycling Team sanctioned me for being pregnant, so I left the team and travelled to the Dominican Republic, where my husband Rafael German lived, also a cyclist but from the Dominican Republic national team. Marieth was born there [in 2019].
"After pregnancy, I felt ready to return, but no one gave me the opportunity to do so. Nicola was the only person who trusted me again. I travelled to the US and we decided to start a long process to be able to live in Virginia."
It was a tough few years after she committed to Cranmer's programme again, as Mejías' travel was restricted outside the US due to visa restrictions. She failed to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, not able to earn points abroad, but she was back to racing, and winning in 2022, earning podiums at both days of Armed Forces Cycling Classic and winning 14 other races. Most important, though, she and her family had a home in Virginia, and she had a green card with permanent residency in the US.
"We hope to have [US] citizenship in a few more years, but I will continue racing for Cuba. My country needs inspiration, and I hope to be able to give them that," she noted.
Full story here: https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/mother-mentor-and-meteor-on-a-bike-road-and-track-success-with-us-team-leads-cuban-marlies-mejias-back-towards-olympic-games/
