Joaquim Agostinho started racing as an amateur at the age of 25 years in some Portuguese races, wearing some borrowed cycling wear lent by
João Roque. 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 They met in Brazil in 1968, when Agostinho won the Tour de São Paulo. and came 16th after initiating the move which brought victory for the Italian,
Vittorio Adorni. De Gribaldy and Agostinho became lifelong friends. 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. It was in 1968. 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. I asked him simply: 'Do you want to come and race in France?' He didn't know a word of French but in his smile I understood immediately what he was trying to answer. What a long way we went together afterwards. What memories we created together." De Gribaldy asked him to join his Frimatic team in France, promising a ride in the 1969 Tour de France. Pierre Martin said in
International Cycle Sport: He was a man of strange contradictions. Built like a sprinter, he was no good at sprinting. He was one of the great climbers.
Eddy Merckx said in 1969, the year when he and Agostinho made their debuts in the Tour de France, that Agostinho was the rival who worried him most, indeed the only rival who had worried him at all." Agostinho was Portuguese champion in six successive years, from 1968 to 1973. 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. Martin said: "He loved the Tour de France. There were few other races which he took seriously, indeed he raced relatively little during an average season – enough to pay for and maintain life's dream, but no more. On the roads of the Tour, nobody ever knew when he would suddenly burst into action. He might be quiet for days on end, when suddenly the racing fever would grip him, not always in the mountains, and away he went. When he went, those with serious ambitions went with him, knowing that, otherwise, they would see him no more until the end of the stage. He didn't take cycling too seriously. It had brought him wealth and security, had allowed him to buy and stock a large farm about 20 miles from Lisbon. The farm and his family were his life; cycling was his hobby. When he was riding the
Tour d'Indre-et-Loire once, news reached him that 20 cows had been stolen. 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. In 1982 he took a whole year off to look after his farm, demoralised by a fall in form the previous season. ==Doping==