Sérgio Paulinho

Sérgio Miguel Moreira Paulinho (born March 26, 1980 in Oeiras) is a Portuguese road bicycle racer for UCI ProTour team Team Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank. He was a domestique in the 2007, 2009 and 2010 Tour de France.

After winning a bronze medal in the 2002 UCI Road World Championships, in under-23, in 2003, he became a professional cyclist and started gaining reference in one of the most important Portuguese teams: LA Pecol. In 2004, he was 6th in the Tour of Portugal (Volta), winning two stages, including the final Individual time trial. In the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, he was silver medalist (Italy's Paolo Bettini got gold and Axel Merckx bronze) in the cycling road race.

Following his Olympic performance, he was signed by the Liberty Seguros-Würth team.

On July 6, 2006, it was announced in Belgian Sporza that he was to switch to the Discovery Channel team, at the end of the season despite that his name was apparently implicated in the Operación Puerto doping case. Discovery directeur sportif Johan Bruyneel, however, did not believe Paulinho was doping. Indeed, Paulinho was cleared by Spanish officials of any wrongdoing as part of the Operación Puerto doping case.

He took his first Grand Tour stage win in Vuelta a Espana 2006, on stage 10. In 2004 he also won the Portuguese national time trial Championship and stages 7 and 10 of the Tour of Portugal. In 2008, he won again the national time trial championship. He joined Lance Armstrong's Team RadioShack in 2010,[3] along with fellow countrymen Tiago Machado and directeur sportif José Azevedo. On 14 July 2010, he won the 10th stage of the Tour de France.