Nicolas Sessler, 27 years old Brazilian cyclist, spent the last 3 years with team Burgos BH, he was the only Brazilian to race at that level. This year, he is riding for the new Continental team Global 6 Cycling. As we publish this article, he is at the Tour of Britain.
Nicolas enjoys sharing his experience and the way he sees cycling, he therefore was glad to accept our interview proposal. From the Spanish city of Valence where he lives in Europe, we had a long phone call in French, one of the five languages he speaks. He told us how he started mountain biking, his move to road cycling and his first years in the amateur ranks, the difficulties that followed his transition to the pros, the way he bounced back this year, his vision of cycling, as well as the problems Brazilian cycling faces due to the lack of cycling culture and doping.
Starting with mountain biking
Nicolas Sessler was born on 29 April 1994 in Ribeirão Prêto, a city located in the province of São Paulo. He started mountain biking at the age of 10: his father and one of his friends had decided to start riding a bike in order to lose some weight, and they each brought their son with them. "It is important to mention that in Brazil I never did road racing, only mountain biking." The reason is that mountain biking is way more developed than road cycling which has a bad reputation in Brazil. "At that time, around 2004/2005, the Tour de France started to be showed on TV in Brazil but not that much, people were not familiar with it, we only knew 'there is this Lance Armstrong and so on, but cyclists are all doped...'. There was a lot of this bad image, especially with road cycling. In Brazil, road cycling still has a really negative image that comes from this period of doping, and competitive road cycling still has many problems with doping in South America. When you are young and you want to choose a sport, you are interested in positive values: courage, panache, hard work... and not in negative things like doping. It is also cultural if mountain biking is far more developed than road cycling in Brazil: there are more sponsors, more teams, more events, more races... it has always been like this." We will give more details about the different problems Brazilian cycling has at the end of the article. Nicolas Sessler participated at his first MTB race at around 11 or 12 years old, "it was a local race and curiously I already won this first race." From there, Nicolas advanced step by step: "I liked it and I started to participate in several races, then national level races, then I was selected by the national team to do international races, little by little I began to find sponsors, teams..." He continued to progress and during his first Junior year, in 2011, he went racing for several months in Canada and took part in MTB XCO World Cup races. "I first went to Quebec where I had the opportunity to spend 5 or 6 months, that's where I learnt French I know today." The following year, he participated in many World Cup races all over the world. "As a Junior, I had the opportunity to travel everywhere, I did two World Cup podiums and was 7th of the Junior world ranking." His 2 podiums in the Cross-Country Mountain Bike World Cup were won in 2012 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and Windham, USA and thus contributed to his 7th place in the World Junior category that year. At that time, he was seeing a career in MTB as a real possibility, while he wouldn't have imagined switching to road cycling.
His 2012 results also allowed him to sign in a Belgian mountain bike team the following year: "It's that year that I got an invitation to come to Europe with a Belgian team named KTM Houffalize. The club of Houffalize was often organizing a MTB world cup there and was very well-known. During a race, I met the manager and he told me 'if you want, we can have a spot for you'. As a Brazilian, it was always clear that if I wanted to progress in my sporting life I had to come to Europe, so I accepted as soon as I received that invitation." So he joined this club and moved to Europe in 2013, as he was getting into his first year U23. At the same time, he was continuing his studies: " I was doing Economics and Administration at the University of São Paulo, and it was cool because when I was invited in Belgium, I could also do an exchange program with the University of Ghent which was just next to where I was living in Belgium. At home, my parents have always supported me a lot in my sporting career, but I had to continue my studies at the same time, because it's important. So, I continued my studies in Ghent during the three years and a half I was living in Belgium; and that's also the reason why I had the learn Dutch, because I wanted to finish my studies in Belgium and it wasn't possible to do it in English."
August 2012, BMC Racing Cup in Muttenz, Switzerland.
In 2014, riding for KTM Houffalize.
From mountain biking to road cycling
"In 2015, my MTB team, KTM Houffalize, wasn't going well at all: they had no budget, we were not doing any race... the atmosphere was very bad. I had talked to my coach, he knew my characteristics very well and had asked me: 'Nico have you ever try road racing? I think that it could fit your profile very well.' I would always answer him 'no no no no, this is not for me, it is for the doped guys, I would never do road, bla bla bla...' When the team had these financial problems, he told me 'Look Nico, today things aren't like 10 years ago anymore, here in Europe riders couldn't do as before, there is the biological passport, there's this and that... Since we don't have any MTB race anymore, I will find you a small club with whom you can do kermesses and small races, and so you stay active.' I told him 'It's okay, it is a good compromise'. So I started and I was doing well, I remember at my third or fourth race, it was a kermess, the guys told me 'oh you are climbing well!', because for a Belgian if you can pass a bridge you are already a good climber (he laughs)." In July 2015, Nicolas Sessler went to France to take part in the Tour de la Dordogne with his road team, Dovy Keukens FCC. During the difficult second stage, raced in the heat, he did an incredible ride: he went alone in a climb at 90km from the finish, and despite a crash, he won and took the leader jersey. He lost the jersey the day after on the time trial and finished 9th of the final general classification. "It was a surprise, the day of my win I thought 'wow I like stage races, I'm doing well, it's only my 4th or 5th race and I already won! If I win, it's impossible that others aren't clean, so I think I can continue.'"
The following year, in 2016, Nicolas Sessler joined a good Belgian U23 team, VL Technics - Experza - Abutriek, where Michael Storer or Arjen Livyns were also riding. He, therefore, had the opportunity to participate, in addition to small Belgian races, in some big U23 races as well as UCI 1.2 and 2.2 races. He finished 33rd of Liège Bastogne Liège Espoir, then 9th and best climber of the Vuelta Al Bidasoa - one of the biggest U23 races in Spain, then he did the Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc and the Valle d'Aosta U23, a race known to be super hard which was won by Kilian Frankiny ahead of Enric Mas that and where Nicolas Sessler finished 19th. He continued with 6th place overall at the Kreiz Breizh Elite and 3rd place at the Tour du Piémont Pyrénéen GC before winning the Volta a Valencia, which he raced with the Spanish team Compak-Campo Claro. In September, he was doing multiples races in Belgium including the Grote Prijs Marcel Kint, and in October he took 19th place of the Piccolo Giro di Lombardia and took part in Paris - Tours U23 as well. He had shown, during his last year U23 but only his second year on the road, that he could get some Top20 on the biggest hard U23 races, and win at a slightly lower level. Even if he also had some results on small races and kermesses in Belgium, he quickly understood that it wasn't the races that were suiting him the best: "It's true that at that age you don't really know what type of rider you are, but you know what you are not: I understood that with my 56-57 kilos I was clearly neither a sprinter nor a rouleur, there were few options left: maybe a puncher or a climber."
Nicolas wins second stage of 2015 Tour de la Dordogne, after an impressive solo ride
VL Technics - Experza - Abutriek in 2016
Best young rider of 2016 Kreiz Breizh Elites
First year in Spain
In May 2016, Nicolas Sessler participated in the Vuelta Al Bidasoa, one of the leading U23 races in Spain. He finished best climber and 9th on GC, and drew the attention of Alejandro Fuster and Jorge Quintana who work with Velofutur agency. "Jorge Quintana told me: 'Look Nico, Belgian cycling doesn't really suit your characteristics as a cyclist, maybe you should come to Spain because there are more races for climbers'." They made Nicolas Sessler come to the Volta a Valencia late 2016 and helped him to sign with Lizarte, one of the very best amateur teams in Spain (that year, riders like Richard Carapaz, Óscar Rodríguez and Hector Carretero were going pro from Lizarte), for 2017 season. This season went very well, Nicolas did very good on Spanish amateur races: he got a total of 19 Top10, showing his consistency, and won the general classification of the Volta a Lleida. He also learnt Spanish very fast, his 5th language. "It was a very nice season, I learnt a lot, it was one of my best years on the bike. Cycling culture was very different. I remember in Belgium it was always like 'we eat fries with some carbonade, you need to have energy', crosswinds, at the briefing we talked about where were the corners... When I arrived in Spain it was completely different, I learnt teamwork, things I hadn't learn in Belgium, everyone was speaking of the mountains, the watts per kilo... During the briefing I would ask 'There is no wind today? Where does the wind come from?', they would look at me and say 'no non no, there is no wind here, you have to look at the climbs', it was strange for me." Considering the good season he was having, the goal was obviously to go pro for Nicolas: "Yes, of course, late 2016 there were already contacts but we knew I wasn't ready, after only one and a half season on the road there were many things I didn't know including the teamwork, riding well in the pack and so on. With Lizarte the goal was clear: do one season with them and then go pro."
At the Volta a Lleida where he won the general classification
On the attack at the Mémorial Pascual Momparler
Trainee at Israël Cycling Acedemy
The good performances of Nicolas Sessler with Lizarte were noticed by Ran Margaliot and Kjell Carlström, sports directors of Israël Cycling Academy which was a Pro Continental team at that time. They offered him the opportunity to do a traineeship with their team as from August 2017. Nicolas's first race with Israël Cycling Academy was the Pro Ötztaler 5.500, the first edition of a UCI 1.1 race in Austria - there was no second edition - which wanted to be the hardest mountainous one-day-race in the world with its 238 km, 4 climbs including the last one at more than 2500m altitude, with a total of 5500 meters of positive ascent. The race was won by Roman Kreuziger (Orica Scott), ahead of Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin) and Giullio Ciccone (Bardiani CSF). For Israël Cycling Academy, Jose Manuel Diaz finished 10th and, to everyone's surprise, the trainee Nicolas Sessler did a great race finishing 17th. "It was a surprise because I didn't expect anything and the team neither. I was in good form and the race suited me with very long climbs. I did a very good result but nobody, not even myself, thought I could do that well. I think that even today it remains my best result as a pro." Then, Nicolas participated in end-season Italian races, finishing 27th of the Giro della Toscana won by Guillaume Martin ahead of Visconti, Cattaneo, Vincenzo Nibali and Bernal. This successful internship at ICA allowed Nicolas Sessler to sign his first real pro contract the following year, but not at Israël Cycling Academy: "When I signed as a trainee, Ran (Margaliot) and Kjell (Carlström) told me straight away 'we want to give you that opportunity, but we won't have a spot for you next year', I knew it from the first day. They were going to race the Giro in 2018 and had already chosen most of their riders. So it was more of an opportunity for me to discover that level of racing and try to be noticed in pro races by other teams, and my performances in Austria and Italy helped me to sign the contract with Burgos."
After the finish of his first race with ICA, Pro Otzaler, where Nicolas finished 17th.
Tre Valli Varesine 2017
The 3 years at Burgos BH
In 2018, Nicolas Sessler signed for team Burgos BH at the age of 23. With the help of his agents, Jorge Quintana and Alejandro Fuster, he was already in contact with the Spanish team and his good results at the end of the year made the signing happened. It was the first year at Pro Continental level for Burgos BH and, although being quite weak for its first year, they already had been invited to race the Vuelta. But for Nicolas, the 2018 season did not go as he expected: "That was clearly not my best years, it was a shock. The first season especially, I was stressed to do really really well. I was only thinking 'watt per kilo, watt per kilo, train more, eat less...'. All together it is catastrophic, and what happened is that in April I was already in overtraining. I had a terrible season, I got very bad, I was sick..." Burgos BH isn't one of the biggest Pro Teams in terms of budget or structure, so the riders are not as well accompanied as in the biggest teams. Nicolas felt very lonely during this very hard year; at first, his team had not realized that one of the reasons of his poor level was overtraining. "I had not a lot of support from the team, I was going in the races and I wasn't at the level I should have been at, so they would told me 'What's happening, you are not good as you should be! You have to train more, you need to be better for the next races. As you don't have the level, we are not going to take you to that race...' It was a negative spiral, I would tell myself 'I am not good enough so I have to train more and eat less', but all together it was really terrible." Despite these problems, he still had a total of 47 race days in 2018, he showed himself regularly in breaks, but his best result at the finish remained the 30th place he had gotten at the Trofeo Palma at the very beginning of the season.
"But the second season went better, because I had seen that the first year I was not really at the level and that I had made mistakes. In 2019, I worked in a more normal way and had a season that I consider more solid. I got the Nicolas of 2017 back." Early April 2019 he finished 23rd of the GP Miguel Indurain, which made him be selected for his first World Tour race: the Itzulia Basque Country. On that very stacked Tour of the Basque Country, he managed to get in a breakaway and was the only rider of his team to finish the last stage inside the time-cut. A few weeks later, he also did a very good race at the GP de Plumelec-Morbihan. Then he did good teamwork for his leaders at races in Portugal and China, and continued to have some fun in breakaways when he could. He also did another World Tour race: the Clasica San Sebastian, which he also managed to finish. However, he wasn't selected for the Vuelta a España. The second season of Nicolas at Burgos BH was rather reassuring compared to 2018 big disappointment, so his team offered him a one-year contract extension.
"But 2020 never really begun for me, things did not go well. At the team camp in February, I caught a virus -it wasn't Covid - and I was really bad. In the end, I did not race at all. The team was racing in Saudi Arabia, I did the trip but I was feeling super bad, unable to eat, fever... I think I did 15 km on the first stage and I stopped. After that, I came back to Spain and then Covid came so I went back to Brazil because it was panic everywhere. When I was back in Brazil, I found pleasure again and I was really happy, just being a cyclist, training, be with my family... What happened next was that when things normalized here in Europe in the summer, the situation in Brazil was really bad. The staff of the team told me 'no, we don't want you to come back to Europe, you might come up with covid and we would have problems, so you should not come'. And curiously when they told me that it was like a liberation, okay we won't renew the contract but I think deep down I didn’t want to either, I wasn’t happy there." However, at first, Nicolas was a bit surprised and did everything to find another team in Europe, at least at the Continental level. But after weeks of searching, he realized that this wasn't going to be possible and renounced to continue his road career: "When I learnt my contract with Burgos BH wouldn't be renewed, I tried everywhere, like any rider in that situation would do, I contacted teams in Austria, in France, in Belgium, in Spain, in Portugal... I tried everywhere I had contacts. But it was hard because I hadn't raced at all in 2020 and honestly the seasons I had done with the pros, 2018 I wasn't at my level and in 2019 it was better but I did a lot of teamwork and you can't see it on ProCyclingStats. So it was really difficult and in November I realized that it would be almost impossible to find a team to continue in Europe. Of course, returning to the amateur ranks was a possibility, but then I preferred to return to MTB. I started other projects at home: a podcast with friends, I was working as a commentator on races in Brazil, making presentations for many people... I was really happy and I had told myself I may return to MTB and do it just as a hobby, I did not want to continue with the life I had in Europe because I wasn't really happy. I really like mountain biking, so I took that decision."
On the front at the Tour of the Basque Country with Toms Skujins, José J. Rojas, Bruno Armirail, José Fernandes + Ben King, Julien Bernard and Garikoits Bravo.
Grand Prix de Plumelec 2019
Nicolas Sessler with the Burgos BH 2018 jersey. Photo Luis Angel Gomez
2021 at Global 6 Cycling
In December 2020, as he hadn't found a UCI European team who could have taken him this year, Nicolas Sessler had accepted that his career on the road was over. However, he is still racing on the road in Europe today, with the new Continental team Global 6 Cycling, created and partly financed by the New Zealand rider James Mitri, former Burgos BH and Vini Zabù. The team has a New Zealand license but is based in Italy, the goal is to allow both young New Zealanders and riders from all over the world (the 6 stands for the 6 continents) to race in Europe. Among the riders that have been doing very well so far: Polish Michal Paluta, Monegasque Antoine Berlin or New Zealander Ollie Jones. "At the very end of the season, when I had decided not to continue, Mitri, the manager of Global 6 who was my teammate at Burgos, called me and told me 'Nico, do you remember that we were talking about maybe create a team one day? We are starting the project next year, do you want to come and be part of the team?' I answered 'You know James, I was going to stop, but why not. As long as you let me the freedom to do what I like, especially doing a bit of MTB at the same time, yes I'm in.' That's how the story began for that season." The team was launched very late and it was complicated in the beginning: "It was a really hard year to create a team. When James called me, we were already in January and he had not yet all the papers, the insurances... So it was an intense year, but starting a team was an interesting project. I had a lot of fun because I help a lot in the management of the team, it is a small team but where the athletes give everything they can on the road and also outside. The season started without much security, in March we started with 2 races in Italy and Slovenia, then we had nothing, we did not know where we would be going next." The team had to wait until late May to resume at the Vuelta a Murcia, before doing the Tour of Malopolska in Poland and the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge in France, with only one day between these two races. "We had to drive the cars, the team's equipment and the riders for almost 2000 kilometers in less than 24 hours, but we did it and it was good. Slowly things were getting better, we found a Spanish full-time sports director - Andres Sanchez - who helps us in the organization, we have full-time mechanics, the team has started to be structured since late May/early June." The team’s race program was also getting better and better, with the Tour of Sibiu in July which "went very well, Antoine [Berlin] was in the Top 15 and we were giving all we had to help him", then 2 classics in Spain: Villafranca de Ordizia where Michal Paluta got a Top 10 and the Circuit de Getxo. Antoine Berlin did very well again at the Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc, then the team participated in multiples important races with the Polynormande before the Tour of Norway and now the Tour of Britain where they are the only non-British Continental team invited. "We can say that for us the season really started in mid-June. I am very happy, the races are going well and the atmosphere is great between the riders and with the staff. It's the most important thing to get good results and to make sure all goes well." A few days ago, on the second stage of the Tour of Britain, Nicolas distinguish himself in the breakaway with 4 and then 2 other riders, before being distanced as well by Robin Carpenter (Rally Cycling) who won alone. Two days after, he managed to make it to the break again, just like he had done on the first stage of the Tour of Norway a few weeks earlier and as he had already done at the very beginning of the season at the GP Adria Mobil. At the Tour of Britain, he finished second of the overall king of the mountains classification.
Nicolas Sessler is feeling very well at Global 6 Cycling and the team seems to be very satisfied with its Brazilian rider too, everything therefore suggests that he should still race with the team next season, provided of course that the team will continue at that level. "That's not confirmed, but for now I think everything looks like the team will continue, but it's difficult to be 100% sure until it's completely done."
On the breakaway at first stage of Tour of Norway 2021
Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc
Nicolas' vision of cycling
Nicolas Sessler has always been an offensive rider, it was already the case during his amateur years in Belgium and Spain, for example he had impressed with a long solo rider at the Tour de Dordogne, one of his very first road races. Since he turned professional with Burgos BH, we see him very often in the breakaways on bigger races where he has no chance of winning by staying in the peloton. This is the way he prefers to race when he doesn’t have a leader who can do a good result: "I really enjoy helping my teammates, and on a personal level I really like breakaways. I’m never going to win anything by waiting for a sprint so my way of winning is by attacking, it’s how I prefer racing."
Nicolas has had difficult moments, particularly in 2018, but today he has regained the pleasure 100% and is very happy at team Global 6 Cycling. He considers that it's an incredible chance to be able to do such a job, although it entails some risks that he was partly confronted with when he was at Burgos BH: "I believe that it is one of the most beautiful jobs in the world and it's fantastic to make a living from your passion. But there is also a big risk: when your passion becomes your job, it’s very easy to lose pleasure, and you should never lose it." Nicolas has raced in 5 different continents since the beginning of his MTB career and he also sees the job of pro cyclist as an incredible opportunity to travel and meet people from different cultures. "I’ve seen in the last few years that it’s a great life which allows you to travel and discover, meet people and make friends everywhere on the bike, and that’s really good. For all what I have in my life I have to thank cycling, all the languages I speak is thanks to cycling, if I live in Spain and I speak with you today it is thanks to cycling. I think it’s a fantastic life and we have to be happy. Of course, on some days you have to train in difficult conditions, today it is 38 degrees and I had to go riding, but yes I did 4 hours of training, another day it will rain or snow but it's also part of the job. There is no job in the world without some hard times, but when you do what you love and you are happy, that’s the important thing." Nicolas Sessler loves to share his experience and learn from the experience of others. Last year, when he was stuck in Brazil, he took the opportunity to start several cycling-related projects, including the creation with friends of a Portuguese podcast on cycling. "In the podcast The Gregario, we talk about everything, we talk about professional cycling but also about travel, bikes, training, beautiful stories... everything that is related to the cycling world. It’s really a fantastic learning experience, because when you do interviews or exchanges, you can learn and discover that everyone has an interesting story, it’s nice to see that you can do a lot of things with bikes, not just professional cycling, many more things. It gives me a lot of energy and motivation, I share my personal experience with cycling but I also learn a lot from others ones."
Not surprisingly, one of the races he has preferred to race so far is of course the Itzulia Basque Country 2019: "The Tour of the Basque Country was special for me because it's a very high-level race. In addition, I had lived in Pamplona when I was at Lizarte and the stage where I made it to the breakaway had started from Pamplona. In Basque Country there is also a lot of passion for cycling, so it was one of the best races I did. More recently, at the Tour of Norway I was really impressed by the country. There are other races that I really enjoyed doing but the Tour of the Basque Country and the Clasica San Sebastian were the most special." From now on, Nicolas' next big goal would be to take part in a Grand Tour or the Olympic Games: "A race that makes me dream is the Olympic Games, being in Paris is a big goal. And doing a Grand Tour is also a personal objective."
Nicolas likes to come back to MTB
With his former teammate and friend Juan Felipe Osorio
Pproblems and hopes of Brazilian cycling
As Nicolas Sessler told speaking of his personal journey, road cycling is far less developed and popular in Brazil than mountain biking. Road cycling is very often associated with doping which gives it a bad image, while mountain biking has been very developed for long with many teams and races throughout the country. According to Nicolas, one of the reasons why MTB has historically been more developed than road cycling in Brazil lies in the roads network of a large part of the country: "Where I live in Brazil, and all-around São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, it's very developed, it really looks like Europe, especially in terms of route structure; but when you go to the more inland areas of Brazil, it's true that there is still no real structure, sometimes there is only one road with bad conditions for cyclists and no other options, so it's not really safe for road cyclists, while on a mountain bike you can go into nature, there are many more possibilities and that’s also why there is more MTB culture I think." Since Nicolas started cycling, mountain biking has become increasingly popular in Brazil: "Cycling has grown enormously in the last 10 or 15 years. I remember when I started, when you were bumping into a cyclist - a real cyclist not someone just riding a bike - you were sure to know him because there weren’t many cyclists. But now when I go back to Brazil, I don’t know anyone! Cycling has grown incredibly, if you look for figures from the mountain bike industry, Brazil is one of the biggest markets for major brands like Cannondale, Specialized, Trek... Cycling has grown a lot in Brazil. Also on the road: after France, L'Etape du Tour in Brazil is the biggest in the world. But as a professional sport, road cycling has nothing: there are no races, no teams, no structures." Today, Brazil is one of the main MTB nations in the world, last year Henrique Avancini finished number 1 in the MTB cross-country world ranking. On the road, a few riders had a career at the highest level, the last one was Murilo Fisher who raced 10 years in the World Tour, until 2016 (Liquigas, Garmin and FDJ). But, just like Luciano Pagliarini or Mauro Ribeiro (who spent most of his career in the French team R.M.O.) before him, Murilo Fischer did not enable to interest the Brazilian public in cycling, despite his participation in 13 Grand Tours including 3 Tour de France: "Unfortunately no, at that time there wasn't too much interest for cycling and social media were not yet very developed either. It has changed a lot in the last 5 years, Murilo finished his career in 2016 but even me I haven't seen him in his best years. Before Murilo, we had Mauro Ribeiro who won stages at the Tour de France and Paris Nice but people didn’t know him. Mauro is best known because he has his cycling clothing brand which is one of the best brands in Brazil, but if you ask people 'do you know that Mauro Ribeiro was a cyclist and won a Tour de France stage?' they answer 'oh, no, is that true? '. I believe that these riders are athletes who have succeeded because they had a lot of talent and motivation but it's not the result of the system of a country with a cycling culture as we can see in France, Spain, Belgium..."
In 2016, a Brazilian team, Funvic Soul Cycles, was register as a Pro Continental team with 17 riders including 14 (neo pros) Brazilians. The team remained 2 years at that level and was mainly noticed, not by its results, but by its doping issues. Indeed, during these 2 years, 5 riders were suspended for doping, also causing the temporary suspension of the whole team on 2 occasions; and to this total we can add 3 other suspensions of riders which were only officialised at the beginning of 2018 while the team had come down to a national level. We can therefore assume that the vast majority of the team used doping, which greatly saddens Nicolas Sessler. "Unfortunately they thought cycling was like that, but this is not cycling, you have to train, you have to eat well, recover... but there is no more room for the practices of the Armstrong era. They destroyed the image of road cycling as a professional sport." These 2 pros years of Funvic did not improve the reputation of cycling in Brazil, quite the opposite: "The sponsors did not want to put any money in road cycling because it has a too negative image. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who cycle: triathlon, mountain biking, but only for the pleasure of cycling, not in competition." And in addition to the image of cycling in Brazil, it has obviously strongly impacted the image of Brazil in cycling, making it even more difficult for Brazilians to find teams in Europe: "Unfortunately yes, and I think that today it's one of the things that makes it very difficult for a young Brazilian to launch his career in Europe because European teams are afraid, and that’s fucked up because if Brazilian cycling is like that it’s a bit because of this generation that did these things; now we have to pay for the individualism and stupidity of this generation."
This year, only one Brazilian team is registered at the UCI, it's team Memorial Santos-Saddledrunk, a Continental Women’s Team. They have 15 riders including 7 Brazilians and they race in Europe, based in Belgium. The team has been racing at the UCI level since 2019 (unlike Funvic they have had no doping issue so far), this year it's the only South American women’s team registered at the UCI. Although the pandemic has of course slowed things down a bit, this team should help young Brazilian cyclists to progress, as the best 3 riders who have represented Brazil in UCI Women's Teams in Europe over the past 15 years have just finished their road careers in Europe (2 of them have been tested positive to EPO during their careers). On the men’s side, 2 other riders are riding at Continental level this year. Vitor Zucco Schizzi, a Brazilian who has the particularity of being born and living in the United States, has been racing since last year for the Irish team EvoPro Racing; this year he finished 33rd of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. However, he has already announced that 2021 will be his last year as a professional cyclist as he will end his career at the end of the season, at the age of 24. Alex Malacarne, 19, rides for Trinity Racing team, but even if he participates in a few road races, he is a true MTB specialist. Last year, Alex finished 6th in the Junior MTB cross-country world ranking; in this same classification but for women, Giulana Salvini Morgen finished 7th. The succession is ready as former world number 1 in the Elite category, Henrique Avancini, could end his career at 32 years old. To get back on the road, 2 Brazilians, Victor Paula and David Kawah are racing in a Portuguese Junior team and have very good results on the Spanish Junior races. Finally, the sensation of this 2021 season is Vinicius Rangel, 20, who is one of the few Brazilians to race in Spain. This year, after 2 years (but few races due to the pandemic) in the Valverde Team-Tierra Fecundis, he joined the Telcom-On Clima-Osés Const team and has had very good performances since his arrival in Spain in August. He recently won both the Vuelta a Cantabria and the Vuelta a Salamanca. After such a season, it is likely that Vinicius Rangel will get some interest from the Spanish professional teams, if they have confidence in him. Vinicius Rangel is a climber, but he also has a good sprint and does well on TTs, which is a real advantage against pure climbers. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, he had already finished 26th in 2020 Vuelta a San Juan and 30th in the 2018 Junior World Championships in Innsbruck as a Junior 1.
"The quality of the athletes in Brazil is very good, genetically there is nothing lacking in Brazilians compared to Colombians, what we lack are the culture of cycling and the opportunities, it is really difficult for a child to go to the bike because there are no structures. But on the other side, we have young riders like Alex Malacarne or Vinicius Rangel who are very promising. In slightly better conditions, there are qualities to do well. We have already thought about what we should do to make things better, but it's difficult to find good solutions." How does Nicolas Sessler see the future of cycling in his country? "To be realistic, more like in Argentina than in Colombia... maybe we could have a few World Tour riders and it could help a lot to give more visibility, but it is very difficult to see Brazil as a cycling nation such as Colombia because the culture of that sport doesn't exist among Brazilians."
Murilo Fischer wins Trofeo Calvia/Maga 2011 ahead of Freire.
Henrique Avancini in 2018
Alex Malacarne
Memorial Santos-Saddledrunk has a UCI Women Continental team, but also much more in Brazil:road, MTB, track, para-cycling...
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