Borrajo is well suited to the US racing style. (Image credit: Bill McCarrick)
At 27 years old, Alejandro Borrajo landed on the US domestic scene after joining the Rite Aid Cycling Team to confront the prospect of racing his bike and securing his future. Since arriving on the NRC circuit in March, the aspiring sprinter has notched up multiple wins and stood on the podium in nearly every race he's entered. Cyclingnews' Kirsten Robbins found out why he turned his back on European racing to start fresh in the USA.
Life can be a struggle for some Argentinean families due to the nation's economic turbulence, but Alejandro Borrajo's family was hit with an additional hardship following the tragic death of his mother, Christina Borrajo, when he was just eleven years old.
Borrajo explained that the family brought her to hospital with what was thought to be a common cold from which she never recovered. "We don't know exactly what happened but it looked like my mother had an allergy to penicillin and that is what the doctors gave her to help with the cold," he remembered. "So she went to the hospital with a cold and that was it, she never came home."
His family of three other siblings, Armando, Adriana and Anibal, remained glued to one another under the guidance and perseverance of their father Armando Borrajo Sr., a top ranked police officer from the Buenos Aires. The close knit family continued to use cycling as a means of quality time together, something they had enjoyed their mother being a part of.
"There are two parts to my life," revealed Borrajo. "The first part is my life before my mother died and the second part is my life where my father and grandparents took care of us. But, both of my lives involved cycling and it was a big part of our lives when I was growing up"
