This season there will be five Portuguese women in international teams, but not everything is flowers: without wages, they combine cycling with other professions. The World Tour is a distant dream
Maria Martins, in the British Drops, Daniela Campos, in the Spanish Bizkaia Durango, and Melissa Maia, Diana Pedrosa and Liliana Jesus, all in the Galician Farto-BTC, will run this year in the Continental Women's division, the second world division. It will be a record, after in 2018 Maria Martins and Soraia Silva emigrated, joining Daniela Reis, a kind of pioneer in the international bet. His recent retirement from the sport, just 27 years old, is a clear sign of the difficulties.
In the women's team only the World Tour teams - there are nine, mostly linked to famous men, such as Movistar, Trek-Segafredo, FDJ, DSM (female version of Sunweb), BikeExchange (Mitchelton) and LIV (CCC) - pay salaries, so careers are made out of passion and sacrifice.
In Portugal the teams do not abound either, but they are more than in the recent past. NRV-Academia Ciclismo de Paredes, which was born linked to W52-FC Porto, and Efapel are already in a squad in which Maiatos, 5Quinas / Albufeira Municipality, Bairrada and Korpo Activo-Penacova stand out.
Among the internationals, and after Daniela Reis won nine national championships and was a regular presence in the Worlds, it is Maria Martins who currently shines the most. At age 21, she was third in the World Track and qualified for the Olympic Games. Daniela Campos, another talent on the track, is 18 years old and signed for Bizkaia until 2022. The Farto-BTC trio will benefit from the Galician line-up.
"For us it is a fantastic opportunity. We will be able to run alongside the professionals, it is a dream come true", says Melissa Maia, who is in the military and at the age of 32 became national champion, both on the road and in mountain biking. Liliana Jesus is 37 and a nurse, while Diana Pedrosa, 28, guides training.
The Galician team pays them expenses and supplies bicycles, but there are no salaries. "Paying women cyclists only even the World Tour teams or some of the strongest Continentals", explains Melissa, pointing to Belgian and Dutch formations. "This is really out of passion, we run out of love for the jersey and our dream is to be able to walk alongside the professionals", she reveals, with the ambition of running some of the biggest events and perhaps a European, this one in BTT.
"Perfect training is impossible for us", admits the military, who usually takes the bike in the evening, training in the morning on weekends.
"In Portugal there is quality, but there is no incentive. Some good sponsors and people who work more with us; good will exists but it is not enough for everything", she laments, leaving a sign of hope. "Maria is very young and has been launched," she says of the future Olympian, who believes she could be the first Portuguese to reach one of the greatest teams in the world.
There were 72 registered in the National Fund Championships, on October 10th and 11th, in Castelo Branco, giving a rough idea, despite some absences, of the number of women cyclists in Portugal.
It was the only race of the year and was not to be held, ending up having an interesting participation: 21 elite cyclists signed up, in a race won by Melissa Maia, 12 juniors (beat Beatriz Roxo), 18 cadets (Mariana Líbano) and 21 master, divided into three age groups.
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