The beginning...
Andréas Miltiádis started cycling 4 years ago. "I was always an active person, after I stopped my handball career at 18 years old due to personal reasons, I buy a road bike to stay fit. One month later I went to a National Cup Race in Cyprus where I won and I started to watching more serious that sport. That was the start of my cycling career". He fell in love with cycling, and started to follow its actuality closely while riding his bike himself: "I start following cycling in 2014 and I will continue following it forever" he says.
Andréas started with a road bike, but today he's doing mountain bike as well. "I’m enjoying all of Road, Time Trial and Mountain Bike and I’m really lucky for that. If I had to select one, time trial would be my choice, but 3 is better than one." He hasn't chosen yet between mountain or road bike and he is national champion in the 3 disciplines. This year he focuses on the road for the first 6 months of the year, and on mountain bike from 1st of July.
Joining a Spanish team
In 2017, he was 20, he had a great season. He won many races in Cyprus, and performed at the Game of Small States of Europe. He won the gold medal in time trial ahead of Victor Langellotti (riding today for Burgos BH), which was an important victory: "it was an important one because I was really tired, as it comes one day after I won two Silver medals on MTB and MTB team relay in the same event."
This good 2017 season allowed him to join Guerciotti-Kiwi Atlantico, a Spanish team, in 2018. "I was really lucky about that opportunity" he says. It was of course a very important step for him as riding in Cyprus against weaker riders wasn't the best way to progress. This Spanish team was an opportunity "to race in big races, because Cyprus is far from Europe and without races it is impossible to be a professional cyclist. I will be always thankful to Enrique [Salgueiro], DS of the team". Andréas tried to learn a bit of Spanish to integrate in the team, as most of riders were Spanish. He moves to Spain for the season but stays at home during the winter: "My preparation is always in Cyprus because in winter we have perfect weather conditions for cycling and when the season starts I’m moving to Spain because traveling from Cyprus to Europe is really stressful." Andréas Miltiádis is really happy with Guerciotti-Kiwi Atlantico, "the atmosphere in the team is perfect". In 2018 he won races in both Cyprus and Spain. He also took part in the Mediterranean Games with some of the U23 best riders.
A training camp with Katusha Alpecin
In early 2018, Andréas also had the opportunity to do a 10 days training camp with the World Tour team Katusha Alpecin. "The opportunity came from Cyprus Cycling Federation. It was a dream to be there with one of the best teams in cycling. All this get more special because my idol Tony Martin was there and I’ve trained 10 days with him, it was amazing." These 10 days with the World Tour team was a great moment for him. "All the staff and riders welcome me and all was positive like I’m part of the team, I’ve learned a lot of new things about training, nutrition... I also saw everyone put long and hard days on the bike to be at this level, as I said it was a pleasure to be there, I woke up every day full motivated to go training! The most important is that I make some good friends and this is one of the biggest things I’ve got from the whole experience." Today, Andréas' coach is Giuseppe Pino Toni, who's also part of Team Katusha Alpecin.
The 2019 season
In 2019, Guerciotti-Kiwi Atlantico became a Continental team, which allow Andréas to be part of more important races like GP Miguel Indurain, Vuelta a Asturias, Vuelta a Aragón, and Ronde de l'Oise. Guerciotti-Kiwi Atlantico also took a Bissau-Guinean licence, likely for financial reasons.
In March 2019, Andréas Miltiádis performed with the national team in Tour of Rhodes. He finished 4th overall while he was riding against really strong teams like Beat Cycling Club, UnoX, Joker, Vorarlberg Santic, Adria Mobil... "This year I’m almost full-time athlete and that affect my performance. After an amazing performance at Cyprus Sunshine Cup (MTB-SHC), I believe more to myself and that showed at Rhodes. I think it is my best result in Road cycling." Then, he won for the first time the Cyprus Road Race national championship, he is really happy to be able to wear a special jersey: "Wearing the flag is a unique feeling and I will try to wear it as long as I can."
What's next?
Finishing 16th at the Time Trial of the Minsk's European Games was Andreas' last big race on the road this year. For the second part of the season, he is focusing on mountain bike. For mountain bike, he is riding with the national team and he hopes to have some good results.
For the next years Andréas Miltiádis could focus mainly on mountain bike and use the road just as a preparation. He is studying electrical engineering at University of Cyprus but if he wants to make a living with cycling in the next years, mountain bike is the best way because he isn't paid enough by his actual Continental team. However, nothing is sure yet and he could also focus on the road if he has an opportunity to join a bigger team which could allow him to earn enough money to live of cycling.
No matter what happens, Andréas wants to "still enjoy it like now", as he enjoys "every pedal stroke." When we ask him what could be his dream in cycling, he answers that "participate at Olympics is the dream of every athlete. Win something big but I don’t like to talk a lot... training is more important to achieve it." Until now, "be at European Games two times and one at Commonwealth games was two of [his] best memories came from cycling. On the other side, a broken collarbone was the worst."
Cycing in Cyprus
Andréas Miltiádis won the 2019 Road national championship with a lead of 10 minutes on the second, "that’s a report where is the level of Cyprus cycling" he notices. Cyprus is a small country (850.000 inhabitants), Andréas is the only Cypriot riding at the Continental level. Alexandros Agrotis is the other promising young rider from the country, he riders in France (CR4C Roanne). Andréas is happy with what the cycling federation is doing and he hopes to be a good example for the next generation of young cyclists: "The last 3 years the Federation is doing good job! I’m really happy to start looking a lot of young cyclists looking at me as their idol, they believe that also a Cypriots can be there. I hope and I will do my best to be a good example for the young cyclists to go out and follow their dreams."
We want to thanks Andréas Miltiádis for his participation, it was very nice to do this with him, and we wish him good luck for the future !