Elected the new board of the Associação de Ciclismo do Algarve

Six years later, the Algarve Cycling Association - Associação de Ciclismo do Algarve (ACA) has returned to its activity, after the General Electoral Assembly that took place this Saturday and elected Ricardo Rodrigues as the new president, succeeding Rogério Teixeira.

For the electoral act and voting, which took place online, two lists competed, one in the orbit of the Delegation of the Algarve-Portuguese Cycling Federation (DA-FPC), which since January 2015 managed the modality, and another to the previous direction, which returned to counting Bernardino Caliço, Rogério Teixeira's right-hand man, as vice president.

The vote was overwhelming, with the Algarve and Alentejo clubs affiliated with ACA having 361 votes, with list A, led by Ricardo Rodrigues getting 297 votes, against 43 from list B, which had António Duarte, as candidate for president. Ricardo Rodrigues, 41, is a man linked to cycling as a former practitioner and president of a club in São Bartolomeu de Messines, as well as a businessman in the bicycle sector.
The inauguration is scheduled for March 27.

In the elected direction, in addition to Ana Cunha, DA-FPC delegate, two former professional runners from the Tavira Cycling Club, João Pereira and Luís Silva, are taking part, with the General Assembly being led by José Manuel Rodrigues, councilor of the City Council from Tavira, appearing as a member of the Marco Fernandes Arbitration Council. In the opposition list, in addition to Caliço, Manuel Batista, another figure in Louletan cycling, and the vice-presidency of the General Assembly, Macário Correia, former mayor of Tavira, appeared in the direction.

In order to arrive at the electoral act, an Ordinary General Assembly was first held on January 16, where the accounts of previous mandates from the outgoing leadership were presented, including the payment of the debt to RTP that led to the suspension of the activity. membership, accounts that were unanimously approved by the six clubs present. At the origin of the "intervention" of the Portuguese Cycling Federation at ACA is a debt to RTP resulting from the non-payment of the TV broadcast of Volta ao Algarve in 2012, which gave rise to an executive process, brought in the Judicial Court of the District of Lisbon, Judgment of execution. The debt and the consequent executive process moved by public television led the Association to stop organizing the Volta ao Algarve, which in 2013 and 2014 was in charge of the former cyclist Cândido Barbosa. Subsequently, as of January 8, 2015, ACA became "intervened", after the signing of a contract between the Algarve associative structure and the FPC, chaired by Delmino Pereira, in which "temporarily transferred" to the aegis of the Federation the responsibility for management and organization until then of the structure chaired by Rogério Teixeira.

The agreement between ACA and FPC led to the creation of DA-FPC, which started to manage the sport in the region and also to organize, annually, in February, the Volta ao Algarve, the most popular competition by teams from the Worl Tour of the International Cyclist Union. Regarding Volta ao Algarve, the jewel in ACA's crown, the new management defended in its program that it intends to "gradually and consciously integrate its organization, in order to bring benefit and not prejudice to this association", continuing to to be organized by the FPC.