Miguel Oliveira is a phenomenon of popularity in Portugal and it is not without reason, with the athlete being the first Portuguese ever to ride in the highest category of motorcycle racing and his presence is felt everywhere, and in Japan it was no different, with the Portuguese Embassy welcoming the ‘Falcão’.
Oliveira, shortly after his arrival, felt a bit “at home” even almost 11 thousand kilometers away: ‘We had a very good meeting with the Ambassador. It was a fun event with the two Aprilia motorcycles at the Embassy, the journalists, some fans, and it’s good to come together and have a bit of Portuguese culture in Tokyo, so far away, such different cultures… It’s good. Portugal is celebrating 480 years of relations with Japan, of trade exchanges, tradition and that is also good to celebrate and the Embassy is also hosting a different event during this year to celebrate that’.
Asked if he knew about the existence of such a long relationship between the two countries, Oliveira replied: ‘I knew and of course, we also learned a little in school about our footprint all over the world in the last 400/500 years where we used to discover everything [n.d.r. the Discoveries] in boats and in large wooden boats and of course, Japan is one of them. In fact, many influences of Japanese words come from Portuguese, from when we came here to Japan at that time’.
