Rolando Ferreira First Brazilian player in the NBA - RDJ Institute Founder
12 years in the Brazilian National Basketball Team
more than 200 games in International, Pan-American and Olympic Games
"While I read "Riding," I was immersed in the narrative, for there has never been a book, other than biographies of athletes, that made me feel so close and so knowledgeable about something, much less something with modern and accessible language. In truth, I felt this way because besides talking about self-improvement, the search for results, commitment, focus and other virtues that are part of the life of an athlete, I participated in two of the Olympic Games cited in the novel: the writing made me go back in time. The story happens between the South Korean Olympics (1988) and the London Olympics (2012). The Olympics are the conducting string, the dorsal spine that temporizes and gives us a notion of the time narrated.
The reader is faced with the story of a couple that works for the International Olympic Committee, traveling the world organizing the Olympic events, and that at a certain point have a son, who comes to be known as André. In this moment, the life of the wife Elizabeth is completely transformed. Her husband, Mario, keeps on working for the COI, and seeks to provide his son an education that will turn him into an international citizen with conscience and the ability to think for himself. Despite the distance, the family unit and the importance of bonds between the family nucleus' members are quite emphasized throughout the plot.
Despite basing itself on the journey of an athlete that seeks his objectives, "Riding" is not merely a story about cycling. It goes much further.
The lessons taught are a full plate to the people who search for inspiration in their lives.
As an ex-athlete of old, I was touched to notice that, despite my difficulties and fights in the world of sports, the para-athlete, as André, suffers from the fight a lot to reach his objectives. The culture does not value the Paralympics as much as the regular Olympics, but there you find athletes that are full of drive and willpower."
