A Merseyside teenager has taken another step towards fulfilling his dream of becoming a professional cyclist, despite living with a challenge that would prevent most people from even considering it.
Max Jones from Bebington, Wirral was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 12 after falling unwell on a family holiday to France in August 2016. The medical verdict confirmed that he needed to quickly adapt to injecting himself with insulin multiple times per day in order to control his blood glucose levels.
But after giving up football when his local Eastham Junior League team folded, he found himself without a hobby and turned to cycling, joining Birkenhead's renowned North End club when he was 14. And after defying the odds to win the Litherland Circuit League at under 16 level, the now 18-year-old has just returned from an international cycling talent training camp in Italy.
Max explained to the ECHO how his world was turned upside down when he initially received his diagnosis immediately after returning from his family holiday. He said: "Life flipped on its head within one day. You go from being this normal kid, running round and whatever, to suddenly having to count how many carbohydrates you're eating and constantly checking your blood sugar levels. I went from living normally to checking that all the time and injecting accordingly."
Having quickly found his level and achieved success with Birkenhead North End Cycling Club, Max signed with Innovation Trek Wilmslow Racing who have helped take his performance to the next level. Specialising in road racing, time trials and criterium (circuit) racing, he is already serious about making it as a professional cyclist and has been getting the results to validate his goal.
Max recently spent six days on the outskirts of Florence with Team Novo Nordisk on their specialised Talent ID Camp. The outfit, which boasts over a quarter of a million followers on Twitter, is the world's first all-diabetic professional cycling team, who in Max' words are "trying to prove what is possible at the top level".
The American-based team has been in existence since 2005 and competes in the biggest professional cycling competitions globally. Max was joined in Italy for intense training sessions by an elite group of the top 25 young riders from around the world, who all have two things in common - they all live with Type 1 diabetes and all want to be professional cyclists.
Speaking about his experience, Max told the ECHO: "They were long hard training days in the heat. But it was incredible. I'd do it all again tomorrow. Evening with all the stress of sitting in airports for hours. It was amazing. Literally, I met people from all four corners of the world - Australians, Mexicans, lots of Europeans. They all came together, all with diabetes and all want to race for a living. It was such an experience.
"It's obviously a very niche thing to be a cyclist and diabetic, but when you bring people from the world together, with the same ideas, who have lived with the same issues as you, it's quite special I think."
Having just finished his A-levels at Birkenhead Sixth Form, Max is surging ahead to his next checkpoint by trying to get onto Team Novo Nordisk's development team, which bridges the gap between the Talent ID hopefuls and their professional team - effectively a semi-professional position.
But when the ECHO probes Max on what the end goal is with his cycling journey, expecting to hear that he wants to win a major event or compete at the Olympics, his remarkable response resonates of a young man with not only maturity beyond his years but a personal mission that exceeds the established parameters of sporting success.
He said: "I think it's nothing to do with the results. There's not a certain race that I want to win or something that I want to do. It comes down to the diabetes, because I've heard stories of people who have been diagnosed with diabetes and suddenly their life's over and they can't do what they want to do anymore.
"But if I can go out and compete at the top level with it, it proves to people that it can be possible and be an inspiration to others. Of course, winning big races and going to the Olympics are amazing things and they are goals - but I want to make a difference on a wider scale than winning a race really."
