A new team is coming to the Portuguese women's peloton: the Vertentability Women Cycling Team

This past week, the creation of a new women's cycling team in Portugal was announced on social media: the Vertentability Women Cycling Team. The team will be part of the national women's squad in 2024 and will include Elite, Under-23, Junior, Cadet and Masters athletes;

The structure is made up of several figures linked to the national women's peloton, namely Liliana Jesus, an experienced cyclist who will also act as coach, Nuno Emídio as Sports Director and Rui Serrano as manager.

The first information about the creation of a new team emerged at the beginning of October, after Liliana Jesus revealed that she was leaving ExtremoSul, the team she had represented for the last two seasons. The cyclist gave an interview to the Km D'Ouro website a few days after announcing her departure from the Algarve team, in which she explained more details about the new formation;

Vertentability's priorities will be the three biggest races in Portugal, namely the Portuguese Cup, the Women's Tour of Portugal and the National Championships. However, Liliana Jesus admits that the team could run races in Spain if it suits the athletes' characteristics.

"We have one-day races [on the Portuguese calendar], which are relatively short compared to what we have in Spain and France, so I think there has to be a mix of what we want here, but above all our focus is on competing in Portugal. We'll also be running races abroad to keep the athletes motivated and learning the sport," she said.

At the moment, the team only has Liliana Jesus as a confirmed runner, and at the time of the interview there were already some athletes on the roster, but they have yet to be made official. The team will hold an informal training session to introduce the athletes to the team's facilities and logistics, without them feeling obliged to make a prior commitment to the training. For the Setúbal cyclist, who has experience working in cycling schools, the creation of this new team is the realization of a dream.

Liliana points out that her experience as a coach in cycling schools, as well as the two years she spent racing for Farto-BTC and more recently for ExtremoSul, will help her in the new project. "And I think that the whole process I've been through, the training of the children, the fact that I've been out there racing, the fact that I've now recently been at ExtremoSul has given me a strong knowledge of what is needed to launch a project with quality and competence, both for the training of the athletes and for them to be properly competitive," she concludes.