Portugal achieves best Olympic mission in cycling

Track cycling turned the ‘Mission of Disappointment’ into Portugal’s best ever Olympic result, with Youri Leitan and Rui Oliveira beating Portugal’s Paris 2024 medallist in an unprecedented feat.

The goal was to equal Tokyo 2020, but the Portuguese mission went further thanks to the young cyclist from Viana do Castelo: Leitan won silver in the omnium and two days later returned to the velodrome of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to win the race. Olympic champion of Madison, together with his friend Rui Oliveira, became the first Portuguese to win two medals at the same Games.

The two Portuguese track and field stars, also responsible for the debut of men’s track and field at the Olympic Games, “offered” the country a sixth gold medal, its first outside of track and field, and helped achieve the main goal set in the program contract signed between the Olympic Committee of Portugal and the Paris 2024 government, the classification of at least four podiums.

After an unprecedented four medals won in the Japanese capital – gold for Pedro Pablo Pichardo in the triple jump (a discipline in which Patricia Mamona won silver) and bronze for judoka Jorge Fonseca (in the 100 kg weight category) and canoeist Fernando Pimenta (in the K1 1000 metres category) – Portugal added the same number of metals again, but with more important “colours”.

In addition to the medals won on the track, Pichardo returned to the “flight”, this time to silver, being just two centimeters away from the gold of the Spaniard Jordan Diaz, Olympic champion with a result of 17.86, and judoka Patricia Sampaio confirmed her full potential, bronze in the weight category up to 78 kg.

The “metals” achieved at these Games, which raised Portugal’s Olympic tally to 32 (six gold, 11 silver and 15 bronze), allowed Portugal to take 50th place in the medal standings, improving on Tokyo2020 (56th).

The Paris 2024 targets included in the programme contract also included 15 diplomas, 57 points among the top eight, 36 classifications among the top 16, participation in 66 medal events distributed “fairly by gender” in 17 modalities – i.e. the last was not achieved, since the Portuguese mission was “only” integrated into 15 sports.

After 11 diplomas and the best result in the history of the Olympic Games (78 points awarded to athletes ranked between first and eighth, 27 more than in Athens 2004), Portugal has 14 “diploma” positions and 57 points in Paris 2024, as well as 33 classifications up to 16th place.

The “unlucky” goals can be easily explained by the disappointing results in swimming, as well as in judo, with the exception of the amazing Patricia Sampaio.

Clean swimming in the pool at La Defense Arena suffered across the board, especially for Diogo Ribeiro, the 100m butterfly world champion who had much expected of him and who bowed out of his Games debut by reaching just one semi-final in the 50m freestyle.

Judo also failed to live up to expectations: Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist Jorge Fonseca withdrew from his debut in the 100kg category. With the exception of Patricia Sampaio, all Portuguese judokas fell in their first or second bout, including Catarina Costa, the seventh-ranked athlete in the world in women’s judo’s lightest category (48kg).

In a Mission full of disappointments and tears (until Thursday there was a general atmosphere of disappointment and this historic result seemed impossible), the rider also had to forget the trip to the Palace of Versailles, where all the riders had very modest scores and even athletics did not stand out, if you do not count Pichardot, Jessica Inchude, eighth in the shot put, Irina Rodrigues, ninth in the discus, and Salome Afonso, who twice (and by a large margin) broke her personal best.

In addition to cycling, the “queen” of these Games – Nelson Oliveira won the diploma in the time trial, finishing seventh – the surprise was triathlon, which brought the Portuguese mission three diplomas: Vasco Vilaza (fifth) and Ricardo Batista (sixth) in the individual race and two in the team with Maria Tomé and Melanie Santos in the mixed relay (fifth).

There was also a tailwind from Marseille, with Carolina Joao and Diogo Costa finishing fifth in the 470 class, a position also achieved by Gabriel Albuquerque on trampoline, capping an outstanding performance in gymnastics.

Medals were expected from Fernando Pimenta and the duo of João Ribeiro/Messias Batista, but the diplomas received by the canoeists cannot be devalued.

Despite having the smallest delegation since Sydney 2000 (73 athletes, 37 of whom were women), Portugal left the French capital with its best Olympic result ever.