José Maligno Torres made his country proud in the BMX Freestyle final of the 2024 Paris Olympics, winning Argentina's first gold medal in the competition.
With a sweeping score of 94.82 on his first pass, the 29-year-old beat Kieran Reilly of Team Great Britain and Anthony Jeanjean of France to secure his nation's first gold medal since the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Highlights
- José Maligno Torres won Argentina's first gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics for BMX Freestyle.
- José revealed he pulled a prank on other athletes by removing bike seats and wheels at the Olympic Village.
- José compared his prank to other countries using locks on public bikes at the village.
Before taking the top step of the podium, José, a.k.a "Maligno," revealed a prank he pulled on the other athletes at the Olympic Village.
"I'm not a bad guy at all," the cyclist and notorious prankster, whose nickname translates to "cheeky" or "mischievous," told ElDoce.
Image credits: Alex Broadway/Getty Images
"We arrived at the Olympic Village, and the bicycles there are public. As the days went by, several countries bought locks so that others wouldn't take them.
"We started to get upset because we couldn't grab any bikes, so we said, 'You know what? Let's take the seats off them.'"
The idea proved unsuccessful, as many athletes still used the seatless bikes to get around the village.
José became the talk of the web not only for his achievement but also for the prank he pulled on his fellow athletes at the Olympic Village
Image credits: José Torres
"We went to sleep with the seats so we could use the bikes the next day. We thought no one would take the bicycles, but the next day, we went down, and they were gone.
"We were even more upset because we had the seats but not the bikes. That same night, we said, 'Whatever, let's take off both wheels.'"
Then came the warning from the authorities.
"We went to sleep with the two wheels, and while we were having breakfast, we received a voice message from Team Argentina that said, 'To those who took the two wheels off the bikes, downstairs, I hope you're not on our team. In ten minutes, we want the wheels back on, or I'll go door to door looking for them, and if I find them...'
"We finished breakfast and rushed to put the wheels back on."
"The person who sent the message then came to me and said, 'I knew it was you, but I couldn't call you out.'
"I told them, 'What I did is the same thing as other countries putting locks on them. You can't use them either way.'"
Netizens quickly found video evidence proving that the anecdote was true.
One of his prank victims was tennis player Daria Saville, who took to TikTok to share a clip of herself and a fellow Team Australia athlete riding the bikes from which he had removed the seats.
"Bikes are meant to be shared here in the village, but some savvy people brought their own bike locks or took the whole bike seat so no one else could use the bikes…but man, we were RUSHING, so this had to do," she wrote.
"Of all places, I think the Olympic Village is the place where this is the least likely to work," commented one user, to which the Olympian responded, "I don't know who does it. Maybe coaches or staff, but it's just annoying, haha."
Tired of athletes putting locks on public bikes, the 29-year-old removed their seats and wheels and took them to his room. Then, one of the team leaders found out
José's love affair with bicycle motocross began in Córdoba's Parque de las Naciones when he was 14 years old.
"The ramps there weren't great, but it was all we had, and we had to make the best of it," the medalist born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, told sports outlet TyC.
José participated in several X Games in the US and won the Nass Pro Park Championship in 2017. In 2019, he earned his first medal at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.
Last year, he competed at the UCI BMX Freestyle World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. He also claimed gold at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
"The people should know that everything I do, all of my work, is to give back some joy."