27/09/2023

Nelson Oliveira, a pillar of Movistar Team talks about the recent European Championships with an eye on 2024 "We'll see what the future brings"

Nelson Oliveira, the Portuguese native from Anadia, is a well-known and respected name in the World Tour peloton at the age of 34.

Defending the colours of Movistar for 7 years, and after Alejandro Valverde's retirement from cycling, he is the voice that everyone hears within the Movistar team. A true commander. He recently took part in the European Cycling Time Trial Championships, where he achieved an excellent 6th place (18th in the cross-country race), precisely the same position he achieved at the World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. He opened the book on his performance in the Netherlands in a conversation with the sports newspaper "O Jogo".

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"After the Vuelta I was in Madrid with my family, missing my mother, my wife and my daughters. It's refreshing after three hard weeks." He added: "I didn't finish the Vuelta badly and, being focused on my work, I knew I could do well at the European Championships."

"If we work well, when the day comes, we match it. I'm happy with sixth place, but I always want more," he says, with a mixture of satisfaction and ambition.

"I always lack that little bit of luck for the medal, because I already have a lot of Top 10 finishes. But I know where I was coming from (Vuelta) and how I was doing. The others are good and were fresher."

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Nelson looks at the ITTs and stresses that "There is now a fantastic young generation in the crono." This makes his dream of a medal increasingly difficult to achieve, as age takes its toll.

Looking back on the Vuelta, Nelson is honest and very open in his opinion: "Our goal was far from what we wanted, which was the podium with Enric Mas, and we didn't achieve it," he said.

Nelson says he's not worried about the future, nor about the request for reinforcements from the Spanish team's leader, Enric Mas. "I took the news naturally. Enric Mas had already said it, even to the team. It's up to me to do my job," he said, also revealing that he's not even thinking about the races he plans to do next year "Next year? I'm waiting for my future to be announced and then we'll see what comes of it," he added enigmatically.