Paris2024: Medal favorite label doesn’t bother world champion Iúri Leitão

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The label of ‘favorite’ attached to Portuguese cyclist Iúri Leitão, the omnium world champion, doesn’t bother the ‘ace’ of the track, who is focused on finishing in the top eight in Paris2024 and doing his race, not the one he’s expected to do.

“I understand that people have this expectation, we always want to find the new national heroes, but I don’t see it like that. From what I gather, it’s going to be a much more demanding race than any I’ve ever done. It’s not because I’m world champion that I have to get a great result. I’m going to try to enjoy myself and get the best result possible,” explained the 26-year-old cyclist in an interview with Lusa at the Sangalhos Velodrome.

In the ‘home’ of Portuguese track cycling, the 2023 omnium world champion, racing on the road for Spain’s Caja Rural, guarantees he wants to “do the best he can” and apply the learning he brings “to make as few mistakes as possible”.

In the omnium, he confesses, “I’d like to get a result in the top eight”, also competing in the madison, a doubles race, with Rui Oliveira;

“I’d be very happy to be part of such a select group. I’d be extremely proud to be there, and if I got that result, it would be amazing,” he says.

Catapulted to another level of fame and recognition, on the street and in the peloton, due to his gold at the World Championships in Glasgow, he faces the pressure with the serenity of staying the course, without deviating.

“I see it this way: if people expect me to bring a good result, it’s because I’ve given them reason to, with very important results, like being world champion last year,” he says.

The title, he says, “hasn’t changed anything”, and he doesn’t see “things from the point of view of pressure, but as opportunities”, with each call-up to the national team, doing “my utmost to make it worthwhile”.

“I don’t always get great results, that’s the way sport is, but if I leave the track with my head held high, having done everything I could… the coach never demands results from us, he demands work and focus, to apply what we’ve learned here,” he adds.

He works in Sangalhos, in his life as a ‘pistard’, within a very united team that includes Maria Martins, who will return to the Olympic Games after her historic seventh place in the omnium at Tokyo2020, but also Ivo Oliveira, João Matias and Daniela Campos (called up, but on the road), leading names in the national effort in this discipline.

The close-knit group – which even has its own page on the social network Instagram – has a habit of competing together and preparing together, a “union and sharing of expectations, goals, training and suffering that is very important”.

“People are used to seeing the glory on TV, what we’ve achieved, but there’s a lot of negative stuff behind it. We go through a lot of difficulties, bad days, falls, injuries, simply because things don’t come off or we’re not performing. Psychologically, it shakes you up, and it’s good to be able to share that,” he says.

If everyone contributed to the points in the national ranking, only Leitão and Rui Oliveira will have the ‘honor’ of being at the Games. “Everyone deserved to go. It’s going to be tough, I’m going to do my best to make them proud at home,” the sprinter said straight away.

In the previous cycle, for Tokyo2020, he was in the “very big bucket of cold water”, that “very sad day”, which was missing out on qualifying for a place, then as the ‘youngest’ of a group with a lot of bad luck, from falls to fractures, which affected the amassing of the necessary points.

This time, they prepared better, with less bad luck, and managed to get there in two of the track’s sections, on the back of a world title that, he insists, has changed little in his life.

In terms of preparation, “nothing has changed”. “I like to think that if things have worked out so far and I’ve been world champion, we need to continue and improve. I don’t like to invent,” he says.

With three victories on the road in 2024 for Caja Rural, the “three-way game” between the Spaniards, the rider himself and the Portuguese Cycling Federation has come to a successful conclusion so that he can reconcile the two, even though he had the option of dedicating himself only to the track on the table, an option put aside due to his “passion for cycling” and the need to have other experience and, in the pragmatic field, another financial ‘cushion’.

“It’s been peaceful. When I joined the team, I was new, and it was difficult to show what I was capable of. The team understood that I had very clear, well-defined objectives on the track. They understood and we came to an agreement. As long as I don’t fail the team, and I have three wins this year…” he says.

In the omnium, a competition with four different races on the same day, which takes place on August 8, two days before the madison, he expects strong competition from Great Britain, which has options such as Olympic champion Matthew Walls, France, with Benjamin Thomas, and New Zealand, with Olympic ‘runner-up’ Campbell Stewart.

In Madison, and after focusing on a “good recovery”, the key will be to sacrifice for the sake of his teammate, and for his own sake, making it more difficult to put forward candidates.

The 26-year-old from Minho is also enthusiastic about the possibility of enjoying the experience of an Olympic Games, having already spoken to those who have already had it, not only on the track but in other sports.

He chose canoeing, which is “very strong” in Minho, as one of the sports he follows. “They’re my childhood idols, seeing them in London2012, Rio2016, Tokyo2020. Then there’s swimming and athletics,” he says.

He goes on to say that “it’s a source of pride to see someone from Minho shine”.

Moti Shabi
Moti Shabi
Moti Shabi

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