Rio Claro

Rio Claro is a city in the interior of the state of São Paulo, known as the 'Cidade Azul', with 201,418 inhabitants according to the 2022 census. Born as a coffee settlement in the 19th century —it gained autonomy in 1845 as São João do Rio Claro and simplified its name in 1905— it owes much of its character to the railway: the line of the Companhia Paulista reached the city in 1876 and turned it into a hub of the São Paulo network. Sitting on the axis of the Anhanguera and Bandeirantes motorways, it is today an industrial and services centre in the interior of the most populous and economically powerful state in Brazil.

Rio Claro has an uncommon double sporting root: cycling and football. The city's oldest club, Velo Clube, was founded on 28 August 1910 as a cycling club —Rio Claro was a cycling pole of the São Paulo interior— and only later took up football; in 2024 it was crowned champion of the Série A2 and promoted to the first division of the Campeonato Paulista. To it is added Rio Claro Futebol Clube, whose home is the municipal stadium Dr. Augusto Schmidt Filho, the 'Schmidtão', inaugurated in 1973 and recently expanded.

On 11 December 2025, at the European Parliament in Brussels, Rio Claro received from ACES Europe the title of American City of Sport 2026. The award came after the visit of an assessment delegation that inspected the city's facilities and programmes. The distinction, of American scope, recognised the municipal sports policy and placed Rio Claro alongside Caruaru in the Brazilian cohort of that year, within the continental network of ACES.