Pablo Torres made his debut for
UAE Team Emirates - XRG at
the Tour Down Under last month, marking his first appearance with the WorldTour
squad. He joins a team at the pinnacle of professional cycling, coming off a
dominant 2024 season where the team led by
Tadej Pogacar secured victories in the Giro d’Italia, Tour de
France, and several major one-day races.
At just 19 years old, Torres is one of the most promising
young riders in the peloton. He made a name for himself in 2024 by finishing
second overall in the Tour de l’Avenir, winning two stages, and also securing
second place at the Giro Next Gen. His transition to the senior team has been
seamless, aided by his familiarity with the structure and many of his
teammates.
“It has definitely made things easier because I knew so many
of the riders and the staff already from the WorldTour squad,”
Torres shared in
a team press release. “This feels like my home already because, from the start
of the season, all of my teammates have gone out of their way to help me and
make me feel like a part of the group.”
Torres has quickly built a strong relationship with the
team’s new signing, Jhonatan Narváez, who claimed his first victory for UAE
Team Emirates - XRG at the Tour Down Under. “He’s a really good guy, and he’s
really professional. And he has taught me a lot of things which I can use to
improve,” Torres noted.
During their time in Australia, Torres and Narváez were
roommates for nearly three weeks, giving the young Spaniard an opportunity to
learn from a top pro rider. “He is
really well organised and he taught me how to use this to my advantage,” Torres
explained.
“Before we headed to the race, he would organise his things
so that when he arrived, he didn’t even have to think about it. Before, I would
wonder about what to bring and what I would need at the stage start, which
would cause some headaches, but with Jhony, he taught me to be prepared. In
both the Tour Down Under and future races, this allows me to be relaxed and
focus only on the race. It is always important to have things such as this
under control, which is perhaps the best lesson I learned from Jhony.”
The Tour Down Under was Torres' first experience racing at
the WorldTour level, undoubtedly significant step up from the U23 category. “It was
really nice but it’s very different,” he reflected. “Here all the guys are very
very strong and in the bunch, it is easy to be suffering on your limit whilst
you look around and the rest of the guys are seemingly not struggling.”
Despite the challenge, Torres took valuable lessons from the
experience. “I think I need to learn a lot because I know in this race, for
example, I suffered too much in the flat because the pace was very high and the
other riders tend to have more power than a small guy like me. I have to get
used to that pace, but I felt strong in the climbs.”
A mature and level-headed rider, Torres is mindful of
managing expectations. “I try not to listen to outside expectations too much. I
am only 19 years old and it is always difficult to get a result in this sport,
never mind in such a short space of time at the beginning of my career,” he
insisted.
“I will take things at my own pace and take every race as an
opportunity to learn, so in this way, the pressure from the media does not
affect me. In the end, the person who puts the most pressure on my shoulders is
myself because I want to have a result more than any other person wants me to
score a result.”
Torres' journey into cycling began in his early teens after
he was forced to give up football due to knee issues. “Seven years ago, when I
was 13, I started to ride my bike because, in football, I had some problems
with my knees,” he admitted. “When I was young and maybe half a metre shorter
than I am now, I carried a little bit more weight, and football caused too much
stress on my joints.”
His early racing years were far from easy, often struggling
to keep up in local races. But during the pandemic, he turned to indoor
training, which helped him take a significant leap in performance. “There would
be nothing else to do, so I rode for one hour and a half, or even for two hours
on some days, and I really enjoyed it,” he recalled.
“In the junior ranks, I had joined the Union Ciclista San
Sebastian de los Reyes, which is maybe the best team for juniors in
Madrid, and our trainer would give me a list of efforts to do on the bike. He
would send me a video of a stage of the Vuelta a España, and when the climb
would start in the race, I would do an effort, and then I would recover in the
flat, and this is how we would work. It is something funny to look back on but
in the end, it improved me as a rider a lot.”
With steady progress year after year, Torres saw a
breakthrough in 2024. “Every year after beginning indoor training, I would
improve a little bit and last year, I was able to improve a lot,” he
remembered. “I did not expect to improve so much.”
Looking ahead, Torres has a clear objective for the 2025
season. “I won’t do any Grand Tours this year but I will go to the Tour de
l’Avenir and this will be my main goal of the season,” he revealed. “I will
hope to begin the race in top shape and try to go one better than my second
place from last season.”
His near-miss in 2024 has left him eager for redemption. “It
was very close last year, with only 12 seconds separating me and the winner,
but of course, this year will be a new challenge. Each year, the level gets
higher and it will be difficult, but I know that I can improve myself and with
each race I start this season, I will be learning new lessons.”
Torres acknowledges his strengths but is also aware of the
areas he needs to work on. “I know that in climbs of more than 30 minutes, I am
very strong, because I know that I am a light rider and I have good watts per
kilo,” he recognised. “But maybe in the flat, I don’t have too much power to
push like the other guys.”
“So that is a thing that I want to improve, to arrive at the
climb and have more energy, because if I suffer in the flat and I don’t have
the energy, then I can’t show my true self on the climb.”
Away from cycling, Torres enjoys a creative outlet that
helps him relax. “It is not something I take seriously, but I really enjoy
drawing on my tablet,” he shared. “This is something that started when I was a
kid in school. I would doodle in my notebooks, and it is something that I still
like to do to relax away from the bike.”
Despite his rapid rise, Torres remains patient about his
long-term goals. “I know that I will be here for a long time, that the guys
want me in the team, and so I have all the confidence to be focused on the
learning process in the meantime,” he concluded. “In the future, I will, of
course, aim for top results, but at the moment, I am here to learn. In time, I
hope that the results will come.”