Julian Molina, 19, is just like any other talented BMX rider. He can ollie up onto the side of a playground fence, pull a 360-degree spin off the top of a staircase and take an 8-foot drop over a concrete wall. The thing that makes him unique? He’s missing one of his legs.
According to a video by Red Bull, Molina, who lives in Colombia, lost his leg in 2006 when he was hit by a bus while skateboarding. His foot was demolished but doctors tried to repair it. However, while he was in the hospital, he contracted gangrene, meaning the tissue in his foot completely died.
Rather than risking the gangrene traveling to his heart, they had to remove his entire left leg. Soon after, Molina got back on two wheels and showed that he could still be a strong BMX rider.
“I don’t feel as if I am missing a body part,” Molina told Red Bull. “When I grabbed my bike, I never thought about balance, or about falling down, or being incapable. Everything just kept flowing. I feel very complete with what I have, and very capable.”
Check out all the tricks he has up his sleeves and on his handlebars:
The only thing really missing from the video above is a helmet, but I digress.
Molina is showing that life can go on even after such a tremendous loss. As for some of his other tricks? How about a 360 drop straight down onto concrete. Imagine the leg strength it must take to ride this one out?
Or how about the backflip at the beginning of this clip?
Then there’s the time the teen did a 360 around his bike off a dirt jump.
As for Molina’s favorite Mahatma Gandhi quote, “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will,” he’s the perfect poster child for it.
