The new Olympic gold medalist Rui Oliveira ‘I’ve never won a competition in my life – WTF?’

The contrast between the experienced champions and the young talents after the men's team pursuit at the Olympic Games in Paris was enormous. While Italy's Elia Viviani and Simone Consonni won their silver on top of multiple Olympic medals, and Michael Mørkøv compared his new bronze medal to a dream gold medal at the Madison in Tokyo, surprise gold medalist Rui Oliveira spontaneously started cursing because he couldn't believe that his first professional victory as a cyclist was a gold medal at the Olympic Games."I have no words. This is a dream," a stunned Oliveira said after the race. "I don't think I'll experience this. This is just 'What the fuck.' I've never won a race in my life. It's been so many disappointments going through all these years and finally - if someone had told me I would win my first race at the Olympics, I would say you're kidding me."Oliveira helped Tadej Pogačar win this year’s Giro d’Italia. He was a wingman for Juan Ayuso in last year’s Vuelta a España. His best result until Saturday was second place on stage 19 of the 2021 Vuelta, behind Magnus Cort. He is a helper, a domestique, a second-rate rider. Winning a gold medal defies expectations, but it also confirms that he is within reach of the world’s best riders, like many domestiques in the sport’s “marginal gains” mentality.Oliveria's unbridled joy at winning the gold medal is what makes the Olympics the Olympics. It's a carnival that gives the outsiders a chance to beat the gladiator and gain fame and fortune with their fleeting physical forms, and he and Leitao put on a great show."We're not even close to being favorites for this race, but we raced our hearts out and with all my brothers and family here, we pushed it to the limit," Oliveira said. "We drove a perfect race in the last few laps. We just didn't blow up and all the other countries blew up."The gold medal, which he won jointly with the Omnium world champion and the Omnium Olympic silver medallist Iuri Leitao, was a first for Portugal in a sport other than athletics, and for Oliveira it was the first victory of his life.The latest racing content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides delivered straight to your inbox!It was also the kind of fairytale victory that forms the basis of Hollywood blockbusters.Oliveira and Leitao were 14 points behind the leaders and well out of medal contention after three quarters of the 200-lap race. But they had a 'Hail Mary' plan to win the race in the final quarter, and the only way to do that was to close the field in the final 50 laps.The experienced Italian duo of Viviani and Consonni led the race ahead of the Danes Mørkøv and Niklas Larsen, and Portugal were keen to take the medals. Catching up would be a tall order, but the aggressive racing had torn the legs and nerves of even the best riders, and it was time to attack."Iuri said to me, 50 laps to go, let's go for it," Oliveira said. "And I told him I had a feeling someone would attack now, so we just had to wait for that attack and then we'd go for it."(After the attack came), we just went at it and I saw we had really good legs, so we just kept going. We kept the pressure on and then - it would blow up and everyone would blow up. We just kept driving."I looked at the board, seven laps to go, and we were in first place. I thought: this can't be true, but... after all, we are Olympic champions!"Leitao was calmer in the post-race press conference, but his racing style was as eager as Oliveira's vocabulary. At the world championships in Glasgow last year, he came almost literally from nowhere to stun the field in the men's omnium with his relentless attacks and won the rainbow jersey.When Portugal attacked early in the Olympic Madison, his rivals might have expected it to be a flash in the pan. But he knew that the Madison would be a different kind of event."The last 25 laps we had to go full throttle because we predicted that everyone was really, really tired. So we knew that if we held on, they would open our wheel and we just had to keep going. And we were sure that we could break them. And in the end we were right," said Leitao."I knew the points were very close. We won the penultimate sprint and then we won the lap. We were only two points ahead. We were a bit afraid of the Italians, because they are really fast in the sprint, and also of the Danes, but I tried to save my golden bullet for the final. We had a plan for me to do the last sprint and in the end we had the result we wanted."Ultimately, Italy botched a change in the final laps and Consonni crashed, leaving Viviani unable to keep up with their attacks. What could have been a thrilling finale turned into a showdown for Italy as they saw Oliveira and Leitao ride to gold.The Portuguese duo may have been unaware of their rivals' misfortune, as they certainly had not expected their plan to succeed."I've never won a race in my life," Oliveria said. "To become an Olympic champion as my first win, well, I still don't know if this is all real, real. It's crazy."Get unlimited access to all our coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games, including breaking news and analysis from our journalists on the ground on every event across road, mountain bike, track and BMX cycling, as it happens and much more. More information.

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