Daniel Viegas: we don’t know when the next race will be and we must always be ready
The expansion of the coronavirus throughout the world has led to a day-to-day change in numbers and precautions. In Portugal, for example, as of 19 March, more than 640 positive cases have been recorded, two people have died and a state of emergency has been declared. Daniel Viegas, the Lusitanian cyclist from Kometa-Xstra, is experiencing the situation with this mixture of concern and normality that is common to all countries. “Until now, more or less you can continue to live a normal life. As far as training is concerned, for the moment I can still go out and ride without any problem,” he says.
The cyclist from the Algarve explains how up to now the restrictive measures, although it is true that A Raia (border) between Spain and Portugal is closed except for a series of cases (cross-border work or transport of goods, among others), have been more of a personal matter. “People were doing a voluntary quarantine. In my opinion, I don’t think it will last long, because four or five days in a row at home they can hold out without any particular problem. But from the week on people will get tough, too tough, and will end up going out on the streets because in the end, we will say, it is not a compulsory quarantine”.
The Lusitanian rider makes the gesture when, in an exclusively sportive prism, he talks about the amount of competitions that have been postponed in the last days, also with several cases within the national calendar of Portugal (with the Volta ao Alentejo in the lead). “Right now I feel very well of physical condition, I did many races at the beginning of the season and these have given me a very good point of form. But now without races nothing can be done about it. Now we just have to wait and continue training, because you don’t know when the next race will be and you always have to be prepared”.
Viegas, in fact, completed three of the four trophies of the Challenge of Mallorca, the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, the Vuelta a Murcia, the Clásica de Almería and the Tour de Antalya. In total, at the moment, fifteen days of competition where there have not been absences of escapes and even some podium derived from some secondary classification, as it happened in the Almeria event.
“From my point of view the season is going well. Missing the victories, but as a team we are doing well. Personally I would say that both the last day in Mallorca and the Clásica de Almería have been my best races, so far. In Antalya the team was very good. We couldn’t win, it was close and it was a pity we didn’t make it, because we wanted to do very well there”.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
? David Ponce / Gobik
