It's weird...I mean, here is a guy who practices cycling as if it was an art for him, and upon defecting from Cuba condemned himself to the horror of not being able to be with his mother during her dying days, yet he couldn't hack being away from his own young family in order to ride in Europe. I'm not criticizing him, y si Ivan está leyendo esto, él sabe que estamos conversando sobre las cosas de la vida, y no hablando mal de él...but it reminds me of a aspirant Navy SEAL featured in the first reality TV show that I've ever enjoyed - one about ... surprise ... training for the SEALS. This guy at the start of the program is very motivated, and obviously has the physical capacity to handle the training. But within a week, he quits.
And he actually gave an amazing yet simple explanation, along the lines of not wanting with all his heart and soul to be a SEAL, when that's what is required for success in that position, for why he quit. He said that his family came first for him, at the end of the day his work in the Navy was just a job, and he wasn't willing to live to be a SEAL if that meant that his family life was significantly impacted (I think it was implicit that family life could be adversely affected regardless of what job he had in the Navy if he was killed in action...).
I guess why that surprised me is because most people aren't willing to be honest about why it is they fail at things. And here you had an otherwise highly motivated individual admitting that mentally, he just didn't want it enough.
Yo conozco Ivan y conozco Cuba pero todavia me parece raro que el tipo tuvo ese oportunidad en Europa y lo dejó para volver a correr Manhattan Beach y races like that.