He began an impromptu race; the team could not catch him, even though Agostinho was riding a standard steel bicycle.

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[6] – left Jean de Gribaldy, a team manager and former cyclist, in awe of him.

That year Agostinho rode the world professional road championship at Imola[7][8] and came 16th after initiating the move which brought victory for the Italian, Vittorio Adorni.

De Gribaldy said in 1980: "At the end of my life, if I had to recall a single place in the world, I wouldn't hesitate long.

I would choose the little Brazilian hotel, insignificant, discreet, in São Paulo, where I had arranged to meet Joaquim.

I had noticed him two months earlier at Imola, at the world championship, but it was in São Paulo that I spoke to him for the first time.

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.

[2] Agostinho stayed with de Gribaldy as his teams were successively sponsored by Frimatic, Hoover, and Van Cauter Magniflex.

[3] 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.

It had brought him wealth and security, had allowed him to buy and stock a large farm about 20 miles from Lisbon.

Off he went, in mid-race, back to Portugal to organise a posse to hunt the cattle, chartering a light plane for himself to direct the search.

[12] 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.

Two hours later he was taken to hospital in Faro, where an X-ray showed he had broken the parietal bone in his skull.