Matthew Oliveira will spend this season racing for Hot Tubes, a top junior development cycling team in the United States.

Oliveira secured a podium finish in his first outing as a bona fide Hot Tubes rider at the Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Arizona last weekend.

It was his second appearance wearing the team’s eye-catching sky blue kit, having placed fourth overall as a guest rider at the four-day Green Mountain Stage Race in Vermont six months ago.

Oliveira was first invited to compete for the team after his superb performances at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Nassau, Bahamas, last summer where he won gold medals in the time-trial and bronze in the road race.

“It was amazing to be asked to join [Hot Tubes] as previously I had raced against the team in some American races, where I looked up to their strong teamwork and talent,” Oliveira, 18, said.

“Racing in America is not comparable to racing [in Bermuda]; the field is normally up to ten times bigger in most races and capability levels of all the riders are similar, which makes the competition much more extreme.”

Oliveira was third after the 15-mile time-time — the first stage of last weekend’s race — 25 seconds behind second-place riders from Lux Cycling.

“It was up to me and my team to try and pull back [Lux’s] time gap on the next two races, the road race and town criterium in Phoenix,” said Oliveira, who was competing against more than 70 riders.

“Our team was lacking half of our riders due to other collisions and personal duties, which made the team five riders down on the Lux crew and made an attempt to winning very hard.”

The Warwick Academy pupil carried his good form into the road race, finishing in the top-15, and then performed strongly in the final event, the criterium, to take a podium spot.

“The third race was the criterium in downtown Phoenix, a very fast and fun race,” he said.

“On the last lap I made a break, which I held right up to 20 metres until the line, where I was unfortunately caught back up by the anxious nine Lux riders who were riding defensively for their leader.

“I’m very happy with third considering it was my first race of the year and I still have a lot of training to do to get me to my best level.”

Up next for Oliveira, who competes locally for Winners Edge, is another stage race for Hot Tubes in the Tour of Southern Highlands in Georgia next month. He will also compete for the team in several European races this summer.