Your Magazine is willing to get some of the articles that were successful in the past back. This ‘OCM in focus’ series was created in season 12 by Tim Johnson (our pundit for Young Guns), and since then we’ve had reviews for Caribbean, Swedish and Dutch cycling. I myself did the last article of this series for Asian cycling in season 15, and now in the Magazine we thought that this was a good thing to get back. I promise that the two ‘chiefs’ (if you can call them that) of the Magazine had no influence selecting the country to be reviewed…
  
  From Bragança to Faro, Portugal’s stunning landscapes are used to chains and pedals. Their cycling tradition is one of the richest of the world, and that turned into a great myriad of riders. Portuguese fans have many memories about epic races, classic wins and other times’ riders. The first big rider they had was Estanislao Fraga, part of the mythic Team Sorensen. This sprinter won the Helsinki GP classic back in season 5, and was in the top 10 of OCM that and the previous season. He had eight victories and 30 results before retiring in season 13.
  
  Since that start, the country has had many moments to celebrate: two victories in Antwerpen – Huy (Correa and Neves), two in Helsinki GP (the aforementioned Fraga and Rios), De Saldanha in Roubaix Classic, and some Tour victories: Tavio Pardo in Essex, Vasco Assis in the inaugural edition of Monte Rosa, Conrado Fraga in Nederlandse Tour and Celso Leitao in Volta ao Porto.
  
  That last race, Volta ao Porto, is a “before and after” event in Portugal’s cycling history. Dubbed by many as “Volta”, it’s an entity on its own and the favourite of managers, riders and fans since its inception in season eleven. Those youngsters who saw Keegan Shiable crying on the podium of the first

edition are now appearing as serious candidates for the victory. Only 3 Portuguese riders were there in the first edition (and only one team, Yuri SuperTeam), but they shone even more than Shiable: three great overperformances that are still remembered by OCM fans. They were encouraged to do well in home turf, and so they did as they brought home two stage victories, two podiums, and three other top9 placings, together with the sprinting classification.
  
  Notable Portuguese riders in the last edition, finished barely a week ago, were Alfeu Freitas and Gilberto Morais, two youngsters racing in Portuguese teams. Freitas, 24, riding for Cyclemotor (a team consisting in 13 Portuguese and Teodor Bagger) and featured in the last Young Guns article (together with Rios and Leitao), is the new sensation of the Portugal National Team, and while I’m writing he’s captaining his nation on the first event of the Clash of Nations in Delhi. He finished 8th in the General Classification of Volta (first Portuguese was his teammate Aguiar, 6th), and scored a third place in Portelinha. He was also second of Youth Classification. Morais, 23, in Torreira (a team that also turned his focus on home riders), won the stage in Portelinha and finished second in Penamacor. His bad time trial abilities prevented him from entering the top places, but this is something that may not worry him as he will improve in the future. The curious thing about them is that both admitted to have started cycling after seeing the inaugural edition of Volta ao Porto.
  
  It’s impossible (or we would need too much paper) to talk about all the great riders Portugual has. Many riders are worth a mention, as Fraga, Almada, Garrido, Raposo, Neves, Rios, Pires… but we’ll better go to the teams before they get angry.
  
  ExploGen is

the current Portugal top ranked team, being 20th of the OCM, and is based on foreign riders as the SARS Kristoffers or fantastic time trialers as Medina or Olufsen. Environmentally friendly’s Greenride (second in the nation’s rank) have in Avery Nijholt, “the red lobster”, their main man. They’re focused on sprints and have a strong Portuguese group of leadouts with Pires and Balsemao being the best. Patya Gordeyeva and Joop Daems lead Yuri SuperTeam (third ranked team of the country), where seven Portuguese riders try to help them. Yuri, manager of the team, is the current National Team Manager.
  
  There are in total 143 Portuguese ranked teams, and they finished second in the last World Tour. There are also 377 ranked riders from this country. Numbers, just numbers, but if we can say something about Portuguese managers, riders, teams and race organizers, etc., is that they do whatever they can to create a better community, a better cycling world and a better OCM.
  
  Top Portuguese riders
  1 Conrado Fraga 1050
  (35th of OCM)
  2 Almor Almada 880 points
  (58th of OCM)
  3 Bráulio Souto Maior 820
  (68th of OCM)
  4 Guilherme Rios 690
  (95th of OCM)
  5 David Pires 670
  (99th of OCM)
  
  Top Portuguese teams
  1 ExploGen 2290
  (20th of OCM)
  2 Greenride 2090
  (25th of OCM)
  3 Yuri SuperTeam 1920
  (33rd of OCM)
  4 Torreira 1476
  (56th of OCM)
  5 CycleMotor 1332 points
  (67th of OCM)
  
  Written by pundit Holger Czukay to OCM Magazine