Former Moto2 rider Pons walks barefoot from Spain to Pakistan

Ex-Moto2 rider Axel Pons has radically altered his life after retiring from motorcycle racing, having walked barefoot from Spain to Pakistan on his way to India.

Son of the legendary Sito Pons, two-time MotoGP winner, Axel Pons had a lot to live up to early in his career as a motorcycle racer.

Expectations were very high, but so was the pressure on his shoulders, and despite some promising results in the Moto2 World Championship – a 16th place finish in the 2016 season being the apex of his racing career – he decided to take a break from motorcycle racing and focus on fashion.

He did some work as a fashion model, then disappeared only to resurface in 2019 to do an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais in which he said he wanted to slow down and put his past life behind him.

But no one expected the kind of change that was coming.

“At some point, I started to question what is the point of living such a fast life,” Pons recently told a roadside interviewer. “My story is very long, but I can tell you since I started walking three years ago that I decided to release all the weight and just get a backpack and walk.”

Axel Pons recently went viral after being featured in a YouTube video walking through Pakistan.

Sporting thick dreads, a dirty look and no footwear, he told the person filming that he had been walking barefoot for the last six years, only putting on a pair of crocks when he absolutely had to. He even showed his black, hardened soles to the camera as proof and they definitely looked like they had been through a lot.

Pons, who raced 10 seasons of Moto2 from 2008 to 2017, started his journey in his native country of Spain, in Western Europe, walking slowly towards the east and just enjoying the beauty of the world around him.

In an exclusive interview, two-time 250cc champion Sito Pons detailed the life-changing journey his 33-year-old son has taken.

“What Axel is doing, I think it's something extraordinary and incredibly brave and courageous,” he said.

“He began to explain to us that he needed to walk, see the world, understand the philosophy of life, of religions and he began his journey.

“Every day he gets up at five in the morning, does meditation and yoga, and starts walking. You need a lot of discipline, plus he doesn't go to hotels and only travels with a backpack, with the bare minimum.”

“His idea has always been to reach India on foot,” Sito explained. “The problem is that the border between Pakistan and India is closed.

“He then decided to go to the Himalayas and spent five months there. People began to go looking for him, to take photos and talk to him, a whole story, just what he did not want: he became famous and known there, and now it is happening to him here.

Ref: Former Moto2 rider Pons walks barefoot from Spain to Pakistan (motorsport)