"There's a lot of passion for cycling" - Nico Sessler on the state of road cycling in Brazil
A road cycling renaissance in Brazil + an Uzbek team at the 2024 TdFF? and a bumper global racing round-up
While nations like Ecuador, Argentina and especially Colombia have enjoyed a steady stream of professional road riders for many years, South America’s most populous nation has not.
Brazil is the sporting giant of South America. Not only are they five-time FIFA World Cup winners, but they have also hosted both the Olympic Games and World Cup within the last decade and dominate on the continent in many sports. That’s why it’s odd that they lag so far behind their neighbours when it comes to road cycling.
Of course, there is some history to speak of for Brazilian road cycling. The likes of Murilo Fischer and Rafael Andriato are two examples of established Brazilian ex-professionals - the former having ridden 13 grand tours in his 12 professional years.
Today, there are a number of young talented riders coming through the ranks, but still not in the numbers you might expect.
Vinicius Rangel became Brazil’s first World Tour rider for six years (since Fischer) when he joined Movistar in 2022. His career hasn’t really kicked off in that time, spending a lot of time working for his leaders. Howeve, the 22-year-old still has one more year on his contract and showed real promise as a 20-year-old on the Spanish domestic scene.
Ana Vitoria Magalhães is another 22-year-old who races for a Spanish team. She signed for Bizkaia-Durango this season and has been impressive for a rider racing her first full European year.
Other young talents like Victor Paula, Sergio Batista and Domingos Werik Kaua are all building experience in European racing and promise a possible brighter future for Brazilian cycling.
Another Brazilian rider who has been prominent in Europe over a few years, riding with Burgos BH for three seasons, is the popular Nicolas Sessler.
I spoke with Global 6 rider at the Tour of Britain last week and asked him about the state of Brazilian road cycling. Here’s what he had to say:
Brazilian cycling has a lot of tradition, but the way that the country is organised, most of the talents are more prone towards the mountain bike. When we look at the mountain bike scene, Brazil is super strong. You have, I think, over 21 UCI races in Brazil. Not race days, actually races. It’s one of the countries that has the most UCI races in the mountain bike. So most of the talents end up going to the mountain bike because the structure is there, the money's there, the teams are there and the events are there.
But still, the passion for practicing and riding your bike on a Sunday group ride or just enjoy, it's huge. You have numbers such as the L’Etape du Tour. The second biggest L’Etape on the road is the Brazilian one, in terms of participation and the numbers.
So that shows there's a lot of passion for cycling in Brazil. What we lack is… maybe another big reference or more a good path for young Brazilians to come over to Europe, learn European cycling. Learn the good ways, because unfortunately we had a lot of cycling in the past, but gone through the, let's say, the bad mentorship of an old school cycling, and we all know what we mean. And this ended up killing the new cycling.
The young talents that want to do things properly, train and improve, they end up going to mountain bike now because that's where they see a future. But we have to change that.
I always say, why is Colombia such a big nation in cycling? Genetically the Brazilian is no better or worse than the Colombians. We can be just as good. It's just a matter of culture and developing it again.
Brazil has real potential to be a big force in South American and world cycling, and some talent is coming through now. Quite a lot rests on the shoulders of young Vinicius Rangel. If he kicks on next season, he could become the inspiration that young Brazilians need to see a new wave of Brazilian professionals.
Yesterday, paid subscribers of Global Peloton heard my full interview with Sessler in the first ever paid-subscriber-only Global Peloton podcast. It’s something I’m hoping to do more of in future. If you want to give it a listen, you’ll need to:
Uzbek team at 2024 Tour de France Femmes?
The Uzbek UCI Women’s outfit Taskent City Women Professional Cycling Team look set to secure wildcards to WWT races for next season, including the Tour de France Femmes.
You may remember earlier in the season that the Uzbekistan Cycling Federation reportedly fabricated their national championships, submitting results to the UCI without holding a race. The points gained were rescinded. Then last month, the Uzbek federation held the championships for real.
Whenever national championships are raced, that nation always gets a big boost to their UCI points tally. For the Tashkent City team, this jump put them into the top-two of all UCI Women’s teams, more than 400 points ahead of St Michel - Mavic - Auber 93. With only a few weeks of the season left, it seems unlikely that the French team will bridge that gap.
Some online commentators have said that the Uzbek’s have ‘gamed the system.’ Sure, the national championships debacle was terrible, a clear attempt to cheat. But those points aren’t on their score now, the points that are there have been earned fairly. (Although, the have used a common loophole in the UCI rules of putting their under-23 riders in both the elite and under-23 races, meaning they score double points. They are not the only nation to do that this year).
They’ve gathered their points by hosting UCI races in Uzbekistan (which can only be seen as a good thing in my eyes) and winning races in Turkey and the Asian Championships. Riders like Yanina Kuskova and Olga Zabelinskaya have also scored points in European races like Trofeo Ponente in Rosa, Princess Anna Vasa Tour and Porec Trophy Ladies - respected lower-level UCI events.
To me, Tashkent City’s ranking jump gives hope that it is possible for teams from outside of the traditional cycling nations to score enough points to participate at the top level within the current system. There is a pathway if you don’t come from a western nation. That can only be a good thing.
Riders like Kuskova, Shaknoza Abdullaeva and Margarita Misyurina are talented youngsters. It will be fascinating to see how they progress next season with bigger opportunities.
What do you think about it?
Racing News
Lots of races to cover this week and many more international races are set to take place over the final couple of months of the season. Here’s a round-up of the international races over the last week or so.
Tour de DMZ Juniors
The biggest junior race in Asia took place last weekend. The Tour de DMZ Juniors is a rare opportunity for Asian juniors to race against peers from elsewhere.
The race was won by American Henry Neff. There were some excellent performances from young Asian riders, particularly Ikki Watanabe, who finished fourth overall. Several other Japanese riders and some South Korean, Kazakh and Indonesians filled the top-20 on GC.
Morocco
Despite the earthquake south of Marrakesh which has now taken more than 2,000 lives, three brand new UCI 1.2 races took place in Morocco over the weekend.
The first was the Grand Prix Boukraa which was won by Sergey Rostovcev. Morocco’s Achraf Ed Doghmy and Mohcine El Kouraji joined Rostovcev on the podium.
On Saturday, the Grand Prix Es-Semara was won by home rider Adil el Arbaoui.
Finally on Sunday, Sergey Rostovcev took another win at the Grand Prix El Marsa. Achraf Ed Doghmy was second again, Yousef Bdadou third.
Even with the tragedy of the earthquake, the 10-stage 2.2 Tour du Maroc is set to go ahead from Thursday. The race includes stages around the Marrakesh area which look like they will be skipped or changed.
Tour of Kosovo
The Tour of Kosovo started off with just eight teams, six fewer than the last time it was raced in 2021.
The race was dominated by Italian amateur team Gragnano Sporting Club. They took a 1-2 in the GC through Nicolo Garibbo and Piergiorgio Cozzani. The Greek national team also went well with former SEG rider Nikolaos Drakos rounding out the podium. Albania’s Lukas Kloppenborg was an impressive fourth.
Tour of Van
In Turkey, the inaugural Tour of Van was dominated by the Kazakhstan national team. They secured a GC 1-2 through Daniil Marukhin and Nicolas Vinokourov. Uzbekistan national champion Dmitriy Bocharov was third.
The best Turkish rider was 21-year-old Samet Bulut who had three top-10 stage results and finished sixth overall.
Tour of Poyang Lake
In China, Xianjing Lyu won his first UCI stage race since 2019 at the Tour of Poyang Lake. The China Glory rider won stage 1 and held the race lead throughout.
The other big result from an Asian rider came through Mongolian Maral-Erdene Batmunkh, who won stage two ahead of South Korea’s Dae Yeong Joo.
Tour of Salalah
The Tour of Salalah in Oman is another new race. At time of writing, there are still two stages to go of a total of four.
Algeria’s Yacine Hamza won his 13th UCI race of 2023 in the first stage. The day after, Bahrain’s Ahmed Naser won his first ever UCI race.
20-year-old Abdulla Jasim Al-Ali from the UAE has had a strong start to the race, finishing fourth on stage 1 and third on stage 2.
Vuelta a Salamanca
It was a Latin American party at the Vuelta a Salamanca, one of the biggest Spanish amateur stage races of the year.
Edgar Cadena (MEX) won the race ahead of Vicente Rojas (CHI). Spaniard Samuel Fernandez - who will ride for Caja Rural next season - rounded out the podium ahead of Sergio Chumil (GUA) and Eli Burgos (COL).
Tour of Hokkaido
Sadly I need to end with the heartbreaking news that the Tour of Hokkaido was cancelled during stage one after a car drove head-on into the peloton.
Young Japanese rider Kota Igarashi died in hospital from his injuries.
Thoughts are with those close to Kota.
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Lots of African racing will definitely see some movement in the rankings. If Burkina Faso does well they could move up to top 5