Dec. 30 2025: Congratulations to Paula Radcliffe who has been awarded an OBE in the 2026 King’s New Year Honours list.
For the first time since Olympic marathon runner Paula Radcliffe launched Families on Track in 2019 at the Durham City Run Festival in the UK, the family relay race is coming to Monaco.
Paula’s Families on Track, which is supported by the Princess Charlene Foundation, will take place along Quai Albert 1er on Saturday February 10th, at 4 pm. Watch the video interview above as Paula explains the inspiration behind Families on Track, how the relay works and what to expect in Monaco.
This is a one-of-a-kind sport event in which families compete as a team on a safe and enclosed track made up of two lap distances – 500m and 250m. The goal is for each family to run laps in relay to complete a total of 10 kilometres. Any combination of lap distances is possible, for example,14 laps of 500m plus 12 laps of 250m.
Teams are members can run in any order and for any distance to reach the 10K total. After every leg of the relay, the family member enters the “Crazy Zone” and heads to the “Pen” from where the next team member will start their laps. Each family has a dedicated Pen where they wait and cheer each other on. This is where the fun happens.
Once the magic 10K mark is reached, the family joins together for the “Glory Leg” to the Finish Line.
Paula’s inclusive Families on Track is part of Monaco Run and is free to register. Go to the Monaco Run website to sign up.
Teams can be 3 to 5 people and all participants get a Families on Track T-shirt and goody bag. The dress code is Team Spirit. It’s recommended to wear the event tees or come in fancy dress. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out Families on Track on Instagram.
Paula is an advocate for health and fitness, and is an active member of the Monaco community. The ambassador for the Princess Charlene Foundation has participated in every edition of the Riviera Water Bike Challenge. As well, she has organised various initiatives for school children in the Principality, including at Stade Louis II for Global Running Day.
Jodie Penasa was eight years old when a friend told her about ballet. “It sparked an interest for me for some reason,” she remembers fondly. “And when I asked my mum if I could go to dance classes, she was shocked. I was a very shy child.”
Once Jodie put on her ballet shoes, she was hooked. “Even though I began dancing quite late, I had found my love. Time in the studio was always the best and so many of my happy childhood experiences and memories are involved in dance.”
To be a dancer, Jodie points out, you need many qualities – natural physicality, musicality and strength. “In my opinion, the most important in life is mental determination. Yes, you need the talent but, like in many sports, that’s not enough on its own. The strength, flexibility and discipline of the art are, to me, the reason that children should study dance.”
She adds, “For any child, the confidence of seeing hard work and focus paying off is the general life lesson we all want our kids to learn. And the physical side of dance offers children a great start in practicing a good physical healthy lifestyle. Obviously, there are the benefits of confidence and posture, too.”
Jodie started Petites Primas last year with a few students and is delighted to finally have her own dance school and bring the British-style of training to Monaco. “I am so happy to now be at the new MC Dance studios in Les Jardins d’Apolline where the school is growing. The studio is a hidden gem for Monaco, with ballet barres and full-length mirrors, it’s a little dancer’s dream.”
When Jodie first came to the Principality some fifteen years ago with her boyfriend-now-husband, she expected the stay to last a year or so. “We never went home! I soon wanted to get into teaching as I had been doing back in the UK.”
Jodie was “only nine or ten” when she took on a teaching role. “I was given my first pupil to teach my old competition dance to which, looking back, was pretty young, right? However, it never seemed strange to me. I never stopped teaching after that.”
Clearly to be a professional ballet dancer you need certain physical requirements and from a young age Jodie was told that she didn’t have enough turnout in her hips. “You may say that would be hard to manage but it only made me fight more to stay at the top. I think this gives me a benefit in teaching, I always had to work harder to find a way. I still do today.”
After loving the competitive side of dance, choreography and finishing professional dance college, Jodie knew she wanted to teach. “Like most arts, mastering something takes time and patience but when I see a child grow and improve, I can’t stop. I want more. It gives me such pleasure to be part of their journey.
“And the fantastic thing about dance as an art form is that there is always room for improvement, your work is never complete. Dance is forever moving forward and there are so many more techniques and we have ever-growing knowledge that can benefit children studying it.”
Petites Primas offers ballet and jazz classes for ages 2 (“with the help of mamas”) to teens and students can sign up for a year of training with payment made termly. “The studio is a positive place for children to learn and express themselves. Whether a child is looking for a weekly hobby or wants to study a few classes per week, I wish to help them reach their potential and teach them about their bodies and how to control them with positive feedback and encouragement,” Jodie emphasises.
“During class yesterday, a little five-year-old student told me, ‘I feel like a ballet dancer!’ She was so pleased, so proud of herself. She felt like she was centre stage in a dream. It was such a sweet and innocent comment but made me very happy.
The mother of two admits: “My aim is to share my love of dance and hope it rubs off on the students. In fact, so many mums have shared stories with me and you can see the same light in their eyes when they talk of their childhood dance memories. It’s the reason they bring their little ones to dancing. We want to pass it on.”
Angelica Fuentes Garcia had a very happy childhood growing up in Mexico. Along with her three siblings, she was always encouraged to follow her passion. “The smell of petrol has been around since birth,” Angelica expresses. “My grandfather raced, and my father raced rally cars back in the Sixties.
WATCH VIDEO above with Angelica talking about the Monte 100 Touristique. (Apologies for the sound issues.)
She is the second of four children following in their paternal footsteps (at one point, three of them were rallying). “When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a chef. I am still passionate about cooking but my passion for cars was greater and I started navigating for my father at age 13 and drove my first rally that same year.”
Angelica and her two sisters were “fortunate enough” to attend the Maddox Academy, one of the best girls’ schools in Mexico, where she had a bilingual education in English and Spanish from the age of four. A “generally sporty” kid, she played on the basketball and volleyball teams at school.
As a co-driver, Angelica was the first woman to win the Mexican Rally Championship in 2002, as well as having several successful seasons of rallying in England, where she ended up living. “Marriage was the reason I went to London in 2003 after I met my Scottish husband on my favourite motorsport events, La Carrera Panamericana in Mexico, which I’ve competed in 29 times.”
Having started driving in rallies more than 40 years ago, Angelica has competed in over 300 national and international events, including 13 times in the Chihuahua Express in Mexico, four times at the American rally Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, the Modena Cento Ore in Italy, which includes a leg in Florence, and Australia’s Targa Tasmania.
VIDEO: Angelica and Keith arrive in Monaco as part of the Monte 100 Touristique.
The 54-year-old has done the Rallye Monte Carlo Historique four times. This year she is here for the Monte 100 Touristique.
The Monte 100 Touristique marks the 100th anniversary of the first Glasgow Start of the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique. Cars left from Blythswood Square on Wednesday, January 31, and took in many of the famous Cols and Passes in the French Alps before reaching Monte Carlo on February 3 at 3 pm.
Angelica arrived with her husband, Keith Mainland (WATCH VIDEO above). It was the longest rally they have driven in a rally together. “In my experience, as a co-driver having done four historic Monte Carlo rallies, there is a lot of preparation before and during the race. Team work and concentration are crucial to have a successful event as maintaining the speed and not getting lost on the regularity section is so important. With the added atmosphere of competing at night, it is a unique event.”
For Angelica, there is more to a rally than cars and competition. She uses motorsport to help raise awareness and money for Lyme disease (see box below). “I was diagnosed in 2016 after seven months of struggling, not knowing what was wrong with me but watching my health deteriorate. It has taken 22 doctors in two different continents to get a proper diagnosis.”
Eight years into her battle against Lyme disease Angelica points out, “The main impact for many people with Lyme disease, including myself, is that because there is no cure we have to learn how to live with symptoms and still function at the same time.”
The illness has quality-of-life impairing symptoms, which can leave sufferers with chronic fatigue and a diminished ability to concentrate. For Angelica, this means getting proper rest before events like the Monte-Carlo Historic Rally.
“Motorsport has been my biggest anchor to fight back and, at the same time, to raise awareness for this horrible illness to help others get a diagnosis. The disease is under the radar for doctors, yet more and more people suffer from it around the world.”
Angelica Fuentes Garcia and Keith Mainland.
Article first published February 3, 2024.
Do You Have Lyme Disease? Many of the celebrities diagnosed with Lyme disease – Alec Baldwin, Justin Bieber, Ben Stiller, Shania Twain, Bella Hadid and Amy Schumer – have been outspoken about the debilitating symptoms suffered from the tick-borne zoonotic disease.
According to a study published in 2022 by BMJ Global Health, nearly 14.5% of the world’s population “probably has, or has had, tick-borne Lyme disease, as indicated by the presence of antibodies in the blood.”
Early symptoms of Lyme disease, typically appearing within 3 to 30 days after a tick bite, can include a skin rash, fever, headache, and fatigue. Long-term chronic Lyme disease can lead to damage to the joints, nervous system and heart.
Martina Brodie would sum up her childhood in one word: books. “My first memory is of my mom and dad both reading. Always. I was convinced that everybody reads all the time.”
Martina and her two younger brothers were born in the eastern part of Slovakia, in a small town called Sečovce. Growing up under Communism meant a life full of restrictions, including travel outside of the Eastern Bloc. “But I did travel,” insists Martina. “In fact, I travelled Around the World in 80 Days with Jules Verne. For me, our local library was a Treasure Island. It was only later on that I realised these books were carefully checked and censored for any praise of the West and that many authors were banned.”
There was no freedom of religion. “We had to learn Russian at elementary school and, to prevent us from going to church on Sunday mornings, the school organised ‘Sitting by the Samovar’. This was a competitive quiz about Soviet culture.”
Western music was also a no-go. “Once my father brought home the Beatles’ album, Help! Someone had smuggled in the LP and it was so exciting. We were breaking the rules! We couldn’t play it loud, but my brother and I must have listened to this record a million times – dancing and repeating the strange words which we learned by heart not knowing what they meant. Years later, when I met Ringo Starr in Monaco, I was starstruck and left speechless from a flood of memories.”
Martina moved to Monaco in 2010 with her husband, Ian, founder of NEWS.mc. The couple first laid eyes on each other just before Christmas 1996 in Bratislava, Slovakia. Journalism major Martina had started her weekend job at the country’s first Irish pub, Dubliners. Ian, who was publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Central European Business Weekly, which he founded in Prague in 1992, was at the bar on opening night. They didn’t speak that first time.
The Dubliners became a distribution point for Ian’s weekly newspaper. As Martina recalls, “My Irish friend at the pub saw me laugh out loud reading its tongue-and-cheek column Central European Diary and made sure that I met this guy when he next came to visit.”
Martina was in the process of breaking up with her boyfriend when she was formally introduced to Ian at the pub. “Our chat turned out to be a night-long discussion. And it must have been interesting because I stayed up talking to Ian until early morning. I remember leaving the underground bar and there was daylight. I was about to hop on one of the first trams of the day when Ian asked for my number. There were no mobile phones back then and I couldn’t afford a landline so I made up six digits on the spot, which he duly noted down. I knew I would never see this guy again. What I failed to tell him was that I was leaving town to finish my thesis and be with my family. A few days later I quit my job at the pub and left the capital for a long time.”
Martina heard from friends that Ian had been relentlessly calling the fictious number. “He would come from Prague to the pub in Bratislava most weekends, asking everyone about my whereabouts. When I returned a year later, people were coming up to me with Ian’s number saying they had had enough of this guy looking for me. I was like, Which guy? … Don’t tell Ian!”
Martina called Ian. The next day he once again took the five-hour train from Prague. “Lunch turned into dinner and the rest is history, well with a twist. I was aware of the nearly 30-year age difference so I travelled around the world to make up my mind. Ian followed me. To Mexico. To California. To Canada. He really is the most tenacious person I know!”
Except for when Martina went to Japan for three months with an international group – Up With People – and lived with host families in nine places. “My Japanese host mothers were very supportive of my dilemma. They told me, ‘Martina, many people do not experience what love is. You seem to have found it, don’t throw it away. Even if he is much older – go for it – and when he dies, you will find another!’”
Accepting the advice, by age 30 Martina and Ian were living back in Bratislava and had two children. She worked as a freelance television and radio journalist, and also helped Ian start a monthly bilingual magazine, Business Slovakia.
When Ian’s mother had health issues, the family moved to Wellington in the UK. Martina looked for work. “It was 2007 and you couldn’t find a good cup of coffee. This was long before the big chains discovered this pleasant town in southwest England. So together with a friend – and on a very tight budget – we opened the Chocolate Box, a continental café selling Belgian pralines and ten types of hot chocolates,” Martina shares.
“It was no ordinary café. It very chocolatey and magical, and even though I had no previous experience running a café, it was a success from day one. The boys were small and I worked 24/7 baking most of the goods we were selling. After four years I was exhausted.”
It was time to sell the coffee shop and use the money to return to Slovakia. Ian had already gone ahead to prepare the family cottage when Martina picked up a copy of the Sunday Times. “I read this wonderful article about Monaco written by Evelyne Genta, the Monaco ambassador to the UK. The piece mentioned how Monaco is full of opportunities for young entrepreneurs with good ideas, that it is a great place to live as well as a safe place for families. I called my husband to say: ‘Stop whatever you are doing. We are going to live in Monaco.’ Ian agreed and that is how crazy we are. We did it.”
They packed up the hired van and drove with the kids from the UK for Monaco. Ian started a job as Editor-in-Chief at the Riviera Times, the boys were enrolled in local schools, and Martina? “I was desperate to learn French and explore life on the Riviera. Except nothing worked out. The boys had a terrible time at school. They didn’t speak French and the whole system was brutally different from the UK. They say you can only be as happy as your least-happy child. Well, they were both depressed and it was hard for me as a mom.”
On top of that, Ian’s job didn’t work out and he quit. “I was furious! However, it was 2010 and we both knew Monaco would benefit from an English-language news service as nothing else existed at the time. That’s how Monaco Life started – first as a print magazine, later as online daily news. It was exciting and growth was rapid.”
The British Association of Monaco, led by Vanessa Ilsley, and Anette Anderson at MonacoUSA supported Martina and Ian from day one. “They may be our most favourite people in Monaco,” Martina admits. “It is never easy to come to a new country and try to connect with like-minded people and I will never forget how welcoming they were. When life wasn’t easy, they were always there. In fact, I think it was Annette who took the ‘famous’ photo of us dancing at Stars’n’Bars around 2012 or so.”
The other point bookish Martina remembers from those early days is her need to join a book club – any book club. “I wanted to get to know people but clubs were not accepting new members … so I started my own, the Monte Carlo Reading Society. We had some good laughs and the six women who joined are my closest friends to this day.”
Still, Monaco’s promise of “a great place to live” was not all it cracked up to be. “They say you have to give a new place at least two years before you make a decision to stay or to move on. I gave it three. I had to make a hard decision to take the boys back to finish their education in Wellington. Ian stayed a bit longer and sold Monaco Life before moving back with us.”
They stayed in the UK for four years but in July 2019 Ian returned to Monaco to start Monaco Daily News – aka NEWS.mc. “The boys wanted to return to the Riviera. I was hesitant because I truly love the UK. I had a great job working for the 250-year-old Fox Brothers and it doesn’t happen often that you have the best colleagues, the best management and inspiring owners. I worked in the best company in the world really, truly. It was a hard decision to follow my family.
“I could say coming back to Monaco this time was much easier than before. Maybe. The boys had finished school so that was easier. Ian now has two wonderful partners and our boys Max, 19, and Jack, 23, are very much part of the business, too, so my role is more a supportive one. Although, I must say, the written interview will always be my favourite type of journalism. I love people’s stories and Monaco is so rich in this department.”
Although Martina studied journalism, as a child she wanted to be a teacher. “My mom was a history teacher and although she was very strict, her lessons were so imprinted on the students they didn’t need to write one single thing down. She had a gift of storytelling that stayed with you. I know this first hand because as a small child she would sneak me into her afternoon classes.”
Martina adds, “They say when the student is ready, the right teacher arrives. And I was ready when the Face Yoga Method came to my life at the best possible moment. After a six-month Face Yoga Method Teachers Training, I became certified on November 1st and am starting my online classes from January 2024.
The name Face Yoga Method was coined by Fumiko Takatsu, a Japanese woman who created the concept of a holistic approach to looking after the face. As Martina puts it, “At first it was pure vanity for me. I wanted to get rid of wrinkles and get that bulging double chin under control, but what I found was a whole new dimension of tension release. Quite frankly, our face doesn’t start at our chin, but at our feet.
“Just like we exercise and tone our body muscles, we can do the same with our facial muscles. And as we do we increase the blood circulation which results in more oxygen bringing more nutrients to our skin. It’s a non-invasive, all-natural way to achieve a more youthful appearance and improve our skin’s texture with no special equipment needed. Just a little bit of diligence and perseverance.”
The more Martina learned about Face Yoga, the more it resonated from within. “I wanted to learn how to teach it and share the excitement. Little by little, we can wake up the muscles on our face and start a fully facial workout, aligning our bodies, our skin and ourselves. It’s all interconnected and consistency is paramount here.”
The classes will run on a monthly subscription basis at a very reasonable cost and even though this self-care is a never-ending journey, Martina’s students will be able to practice certain poses and continue their inspired Face Yoga journey on their own. “As my teacher Fumiko says, ‘Change your face, change your life’. I like to say: Every face tells a story, let yours be uplifting.”
To say this has been a tough year for Martina is an understatement. She lost both her parents, unexpectedly and suddenly. “My Face Yoga daily practice helped me tremendously to deal with this emotional trauma keeping me grounded, focused and calm.”
Part of that focus is remembering her folks with gratitude. “When Communism collapsed and my father started his private dentistry practice, it didn’t do so well and he simply couldn’t cope with the new rules of capitalism. My mom was the breadwinner. When his business collapsed, they both went to America and washed cars at petrol stations for five years to pay my father’s debts and to save their house. They paid every single penny back. And kept their house, for us.”
She thinks back to that Help! album her father snuck into the family home when she was a young girl, and singing and dancing with her brother to The Beatles. Martina wishes she could go back to that day she met Ringo Starr to say: ‘You have no idea what you mean to me. You opened a whole new window to my future when I first heard and spoke English, the language I now speak, write … and will use to teach.’”
Email Martina Brodie about her Face Yoga Method classes or contact her via Facebook.
