Joaquim Agostinho

Agostinho was leading the Tour of the Algarve at Quarteira in April 1984 when a dog ran into the road a few hundred metres before the finish. Agostinho hit it and fell to the ground, hitting his head. He remounted and crossed the line accompanied by other riders. He was dazed but seemed otherwise unhurt. He walked to an ambulance, holding his head. He then went to a hotel, where his head was dressed in ice. Two hours later he was taken to hospital in Faro, where an X-ray showed he had broken the parietal bone in his skull. He was conveyed by ambulance, four hours after the fall, 280 km to Lisbon, the nearest city that could treat him. He fell into a coma in the ambulance and subsequently died.

In 1982 he took a whole year off to look after his farm, demoralised by a fall in form the previous season.

Agostinho stayed with de Gribaldy as his teams were successively sponsored by Frimatic, Hoover, and Van Cauter Magniflex. In 1973 he left de Gribaldy to ride for Bic and then Teka before re-associating with de Gribaldy when he joined Flandria's French team in 1978.

De Gribaldy asked him to join his Frimatic team in France, promising a ride in the 1969 Tour de France. Agostinho was already 26, a late age to turn professional, he won two stages that year. He also had one of the heavy falls that characterised his career, crashing on the cinder track at Divonne-les-Bains and being carried away with concussion, amnesia and cuts. He restarted next morning and rode as far as Paris, finishing the race eighth. He rode 13 Tours de France from 1969 to 1983, came third in 1978 and 1979 and won four stages. He finished 12 times.

Joaquim Agostinho was caught three times in drugs checks: in the Tour of Portugal in 1969 and 1973, and the Tour de France of 1977.

Joaquim Agostinho started racing as an amateur at the age of 25 years in some Portuguese races, wearing some borrowed cycling wear lent by João Roque. After winning some races, Agostinho signed a professional contract with Sporting Clube de Portugal. Then, when racing with the Sporting Clube de Portugal cycling team in São Paulo, Agostinho – a rider "of average height but with the build of a rhinoceros", according to the historian Pierre Chany – left Jean de Gribaldy, a team manager and former cyclist, in awe of him. They met in Brazil in 1968, when Agostinho won the Tour de São Paulo. De Gribaldy was managing an amateur team in the race. That year Agostinho rode the world professional road championship at Imola and came 16th after initiating the move which brought victory for the Italian, Vittorio Adorni. De Gribaldy and Agostinho became lifelong friends. De Gribaldy said in 1980:

Agostinho was Portuguese champion in six successive years, from 1968 to 1973. He was a gifted climber and a consistent leader in both in the Vuelta a España and the Tour de France where he was a winner at Alpe d'Huez. Martin said:

Agostinho fought for three years with the Portuguese army in Angola and Mozambique during the Portuguese Colonial War of 1961–1974. Jean-Pierre Douçot, who became his mechanic as a professional, said:

Joaquim Fernandes Agostinho, OIH (7 April 1943 – 10 May 1984) was a Portuguese professional bicycle racer. He was champion of Portugal in six successive years. He rode the Tour de France 13 times and finished all but once, winning on Alpe d'Huez in 1979, and finishing third twice. All total he finished in the top 10 of a Grand Tour eleven times, made three podiums and won a total of seven stages between the Vuelta and Tour.