At just 18 years old, Pablo Torres signs with UAE until 2030 and has clear goals: he wants to win the Vuelta, Tour, and Giro

UAE Team Emirates seems determined to continue dominating world cycling in the next decade as well. With Pogacar still having a lot to offer, let's remember that he is only 26 years old. The future of the team points to the latest gem of Spanish cycling, Madrid-born Pablo Torres, who recently formalized his signing with the World Tour squad after a year in the Emirati development team where he had a fabulous season.

UAE Team Emirates has a new diamond to polish

Second in the Giro d'Italia Next and also second, brilliantly winning the last stage with a finish at Colle delle Finestre where he was just 12 seconds away from taking the yellow jersey of the Tour del Povernir. That is the introduction of Pablo Torres who, at only 18 years old, is already aiming for the highest goals in Spanish cycling, which has been lacking major victories in grand tours for too long.

Pablo Torres, who joined the UAE development team last year from the junior category, has outgrown the U23 category and has already signed a contract with UAE Team Emirates for 2025 that will extend until 2030, showing the team's confidence in his abilities. Plenty of time for them to polish his skills and bring out the great champion that all signs point to being Pablo Torres, just as they did with Tadej Pogacar.

Obviously, it is very adventurous to predict what Pablo Torres can achieve, as sports are not mathematics. However, the Madrid-born cyclist boldly states that his dream is to win all three grand tours, although he acknowledges that he will have to work on time trials, a discipline in which he admits he has improved significantly.

Pablo Torres' signing with a World Tour team at just 18 years old continues the current trend in cycling of major teams securing promising cyclists as soon as possible to be responsible for refining their performance. This trend is a double-edged sword, as while it provides long-term stability to those who make the leap to the professional ranks at a young age, it is practically undermining the Sub23 category that traditionally served to develop cyclists.

According to Pablo himself, in an interview with the newspaper AS, junior cyclists nowadays train much earlier with the belief that if they do not transition to professional cycling directly from the junior category, they will never become professionals or if they do, it will be with modest teams. This trend may overlook a lot of talent as not all bodies develop at the same pace, and some cyclists do not reach their full potential until later years.

Despite his youth, Pablo Torres has barely watched cycling on television but, as expected, he admires Tadej Pogacar, with whom he will share a team from 2025 onwards, a cyclist who went to every race with the mindset of winning them.