Virginia Santesteban is a high-performance nutrition practitioner with extensive experience across elite football and endurance sport, known for combining clinical nutrition expertise with performance-focused strategy. Educated at the University of Navarra, she has built a career that connects health, recovery, body composition management, and match/training demands through practical, athlete-centred delivery.
Virginia is currently a Performance Nutritionist with Lidl–Trek (since December 2025), bringing her expertise into an elite cycling environment where fuelling, recovery, and day-to-day consistency are critical to performance. In parallel, she works as a self-employed Performance Nutrition Consultant (since June 2025), providing individualised nutrition and supplementation planning aligned to performance goals. Her consultancy approach includes tailoring nutrition through the interpretation of genetic and gut microbiota testing, and addressing exercise-related gastrointestinal issues using targeted dietary strategies and specific supplementation.
Her football pathway includes a long-term leadership role as Director of Nutrition at Real Sociedad (July 2019–June 2025), where she oversaw nutrition strategy in a top professional club setting. Prior to that, she served as Nutrition Director at Club Pachuca Tuzos (August 2018–July 2019) and worked as a Nutritional Consultant at CA Osasuna (August 2017–June 2018). She also completed a short-term consultancy role with RC Celta (July–August 2025), continuing her involvement in elite football environments.
Before moving fully into high-performance sport, Virginia developed strong clinical foundations at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra (2016–2018) as a Clinical Nutritionist, working across endocrinology and health screening services. Her experience included weight management and body composition control, bariatric surgery support, sports nutrition, eating disorder care, and dietary management for food intolerances—skills that translate directly into athlete health, recovery, and availability.
Fluent in Spanish and English, Virginia’s work centres on nutrition for performance and recovery, with particular strength in building practical fuelling routines, improving gut tolerance, and using evidence-informed strategies to support training adaptation and match-day readiness.
