The thing with Mexico's triathlon federation is that to be eligible for wc and wts races and be part of the international itu team you need to be able to swim a 1500m pool time trial under 17:25 and run a 5k track tt under 15:20. What I guess, is that in a given year Mauricio didn't made those cuts (probably the swim), so he turned to xterra and 70.3 racing where he found out that he had alot of talent and future.