Sergio Higuita worried about riders' longevity in cycling: "there is a lot of pressure on young people which ends up burning them"

Sergio Higuita is only 25 years old however he isn't part of the new emerging young generation. Despite being younger then what a decade ago most riders would be considered to reach their prime, he's currently older than many of the world's best riders. He's shared his feelings towards the ongoing phenomenon.

“Cycling is in a phase in which there is a lot of pressure on young people which ends up burning them. I believe that all this will soon end and we will return to normal in terms of age," the Colombian said in an interview with Zikoland. "There is too much pressure on today's riders. Because with what riders like Remco, Tadej or Ayuso have done, the teams believe that it is the young who perform better and not the older ones. But you can also have excellent performances from Roglic, Quintana, Uran... The teams are looking for a new Pogacar, but not all youngsters are like him”.

In 2019 Higuita broke through the World Tour ranks incredibly quickly at the age of 21. In 2022, riders as young as 19 are already taking meaningful wins in the peloton, with examples of Juan Ayuso and Magnus Sheffield, and also taking into account the meteoric rise of the likes of Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel who stormed to success shortly after entering their 20's.

“The quality is there, but due to the eagerness to find young Colombian cyclists, steps are being skipped," he says of the state of current Colombian cycling. "You have to learn well, especially by racing in Europe, as I, Daniel Martinez, Egan Bernal, Ivan Sosa and Santiago Buitrago did. None of them entered the WorldTour directly. The WorldTour teams, on the other hand [teams] want riders who have never raced in Europe. So the athletes don't adapt well and today in the top category there's no time to wait."