Movistar's Nelson Oliveira has made history by becoming the first rider ever to complete all 24 Grand Tours he has entered, surpassing the previous record of 23 consecutive finishes held by Poland's Sylvester Szmyd.
The 37-year-old Portuguese rider crossed the finish line of the 2026 Tour de France to notch up his 24th straight Grand Tour completion without a single DNF — an unbroken streak stretching back 15 years. Across those 24 starts — 10 Tours de France, 10 Vueltas a España and four Giri d'Italia — Oliveira has completed 501 race stages, a feat of consistency and durability unmatched in modern professional cycling.
Oliveira's flawless record began at the 2011 Vuelta a España, where he finished 117th overall riding for RadioShack after turning professional with the now-defunct Xacobeo-Galicia Continental team in 2010. Since then he has never failed to finish a three-week race, completing two Grand Tours in eight separate seasons — 2015, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2026.
Szmyd's mark of 23, built across 14 Grand Tour participations for 10 different teams between 2002 and 2016, had stood as a benchmark of durability in the peloton. Until Oliveira's run, no rider in the modern era had maintained a 100 per cent finish rate across so many three-week races. The scale of his achievement becomes clear when considering that many professionals never complete a single Grand Tour, let alone 24 without a single abandonment — spanning 15 years and three distinct national tours, each with unique terrain and challenges.
"I'm sticking around until my head tells me otherwise," Oliveira told Cyclingnews, making clear he has no immediate plans to retire. The Movistar rider is under contract through 2027 and intends to honour the deal.
While his palmares features only six professional victories — headlined by a stage win at the 2015 Vuelta a España and multiple Portuguese national time-trial titles — Oliveira's legacy now rests on an entirely different kind of achievement: reliability. In an era defined by aggressive racing and high attrition rates, his 24-for-24 record across three Grand Tours stands as a monument to preparation and resilience.
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