In the early 1990’s Joao Correia was just another punk teenage bike racer trying to break into the sport. As a first generation Portuguese immigrant growing up in the Hudson Valley Joao learned to express himself through the bicycle. Joao raced the Junior World Championships for Portugal in Colorado Springs in 1991. In 1992 at the age of 17, despite lacking a Green Card and any hope of getting back to his New York home, Joao flew to Athens Greece to race World’s again, following that adventure with a showing in Perth, Australia in ’93, Joao is one of the only riders ever to compete in three consecutive World Junior Road Race Championships. Joao went on to race professionally for a number of small professional continental outfits, including Dutch kermesse team Europolis, and the Portuguese formation Mariascos. Today he is Associate Publisher of Bicycling Magazine. Joao contributes invaluable energy and resources toward developing the next generation of young racers via the CRCA Junior program.
how did you get back into the US sans a green card?
I was dating a girl whose father worked in the Finish foreign ministry and at the time I was sponsored by Finnair. He made a few calls and sent me down to to the US Embassy in Helsinki and they graciously gave me a student visa after scolding me for 30 minutes about breaking the law and not leaving the country after our first visa had expired. I just kept looking at the guy and thinking “dude I was 11 years old”