Executive: Paola Bedin is the founder and owner of MYN Sport (MYN stands for “Mind Your Nature”), an e-commerce company that specializes in fashionable sportswear. Bedin, 48, born and raised in Italy, came to the United States about 15 years ago when she worked for an Italian company that wanted to expand its operations in the United States. She first landed in Austin, Texas, then came to Tampa. Her work took her back across the pond to the UK, before returning to the US and settling permanently in Tampa and starting her own business.
Deviation: Cycling. Bedin is a former professional cyclist. He fell in love with the sport at age 7 and rode professionally for almost three years, retiring when he was 18. Although he is no longer a professional, he continues to ride today, often over long distances. Cycling was something of a family business: Bedin’s grandfather rode and raced bicycles, as did his father and his uncle. MYN Sport is an extension of his passion for high performance cycling.
recruitment campaign
Bedin says she was recruited to join a professional cycling team because, at the time, not many women were participating in the sport in Italy, and most European races required each team to field a men’s and women’s team. She later defied her parents’ will to pursue sports as a career, despite the fact that cycling was a large part of her family heritage.
“I started riding a road bike, not a kids’ bike, when I was 7 years old,” he says. “It comes from a family passion. I have an older sister and my mom, when she was pregnant with me, wanted to give my dad a boy.”
Bedin’s father, uncle and grandfather were all excellent cyclists and raced regularly, so in theory a son would have been an ideal vehicle to carry on the tradition. Bedin, however, refused to let preconceived notions get in the way of him. “I always wanted to run and [my parents] he never wanted me to run,” he says. “They always wanted me to focus on school.”
low snowy
Bedin trained year-round, even in the snowy northern Italian winters, to maximize his natural talent for cycling. That often meant he strapped on a pair of cross-country skis. “We would go out and do cross-country training because the muscles you move are the same,” she says. “They pair well with the muscles you move when you ride a bike.”
bringing up the rear
Bedin admits that she was not one of the strongest riders on her team. In fact, she often found herself lagging behind, which gave her plenty of opportunities to study how she fit and how cycling clothing worked. “You have no idea how well you can see from behind how shorts are worn,” she says, “where you can see through [the fabric], where it just looks bad. It was a great experience for me and work-wise it worked out well.”
Early retirement
Bedin is clear about the brevity of his professional cycling career. “I was blessed [with talent] but I saw that I was not good enough to be at the top”, she says. Also, the pay was surprisingly low, especially for female cyclists. “The salary that professional women receive is less than the salary of McDonald’s, with all due respect to the people who work at McDonald’s.”
For fun
Today, Bedin continues to ride… and ride… and ride… typically about 8,000 miles a year.
“I cycle almost every day,” she says. “Now it is a little more difficult for me, because I am a single mother of two children, it takes a lot of time and effort to do everything. And cycling, as a sport, is not like running when you go out for an hour. It takes a lot of hours.”
Bedin never travels alone, preferring to ride her bike with groups that cover long distances fast. She enjoys the challenge, but she also gives him the chance to gauge how well her MYN Sport clothing holds up under prolonged pressure.
“I like to go out and test the fabrics,” he says. “It takes a long time. I usually like to only ship a product if I’ve tested it for a year. I do it myself, but I also use other guys to test it, guys who put up to 14,000 miles a year. I care about quality.”
Source: news.google.com