Flávia Maria de Oliveira Paparella is a Brazilian racing cyclist, who currently rides for amateur team Fearless Femme. She competed in the 2013 UCI Women's World Championship Road Race in Florence, as well as the 2014 UCI Women's Road World Championships in Ponferrada. She competed at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro where she finished in seventh place. Her Olympic achievement was particularly notable because of the small number of Brazilian riders in the event. She was the highest placed rider of any nation that had two or fewer cyclists in the event. Additionally, her seventh-place finish in the Women's Olympic Cycling Road Race was the highest place finish for any Brazilian rider in any cycling event in the history of Olympic cycling. Oliveira is a past winner of the Mountains Competition in the Giro d'Italia Feminine, Brazilian National Road Champion, and she was the Overall winner and Mountains Competition winner of the 2016 Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche. During a coaching session early in Oliveira's career, she recorded one of the highest VO2 Max scores ever across all athletics for females.
Controls
In June 2009, in her first year as a professional, Oliveira tested positive for oxilofrine, an illegal stimulant, while racing with the Italian professional team SC Michela Fanini at the Giro del Trentino Donne. The adverse finding came from a supplement purchased in the United States that did not include oxilofine on the ingredients label. In fact, several supplement companies were making products that contained oxilofrine without indicating the substance on the label. Oliveira later sued the supplement manufacturer. In December 2009 the ban was reduced through an appeal to CAS after the panel found that she had not intentionally ingested the banned substance and there was no way that she could have known that the supplement would have contained a banned substance. This would see her resume competition on 1 March 2011. A second positive occurred nine years later on 26 June 2018 at the Brazilian Road Championships. Oliveira won the race and was allowed to maintain the title of champion of Brasil after the hearing. In a unanimous decision, the arbitration panel ruled that Oliveira did not ingest the contaminant intentionally and in fact, the contaminant entered her system after the race had completed. Oliveira returned to racing shortly after, recording her best ever finish in a World Cup Event at GP Plouay, where she finished 8th.
2020 Olympic Bid
While preparing for the 2020 Olympics, Oliveira was struck by a car and suffered a broken pelvis. After rehabilitation, Oliveira collected enough Olympic qualification points to provisionally qualify her for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. However, three weeks before the World Championships in Yorkshire, England, Oliveira suffered a crash that effectively ended her season in the GP Fourmies in France.
