After Iúri Leitão gave the first ever medal to national track cycling, expectations of Portugal achieving a good result grew, but the start of the race dampened spirits, until during the last 40 laps the Portuguese ‘dynamited’ the race and set off for an incredible win.
Going into the final five sprints, which were held every 10 laps, the Portuguese had only eight points, but they added two more in 16th place, before completely dominating the final four, which gave them 25 points, to which they added 20 for overtaking the pack.
Italy, with Elia Viviani and Simone Consonni, and Denmark, Olympic champions in Tokyo 2020, with Niklas Larsen and Michael Morkov, managed to score the 20 points needed to double the peloton and seemed to be in a two-way fight for gold.
The first objective, according to the two Portuguese, was to secure the Olympic diploma, reserved for the top eight, a goal that was threatened at one point, with Portugal falling out of the top 10.
However, at full throttle, as Iúri Leitão admitted, the Portuguese duo won the last five sprints, ‘doubled’ the peloton and moved into the lead, by two points, with 10 laps to go.
With the three teams that would finish on the podium defined, the final sprint, which gave 10 points to the winner, could have been decisive in awarding the Olympic title, but Iúri Leitão did not make things easy and gave Portugal a historic gold medal.
After the race, the two remained hugging each other for several minutes, crying on the floor of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome, before being congratulated by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, who celebrated the triumph in the technical area of the track, holding the national flag.