UAE Team Emirates will have the phenomenon Gonçalo Tavares in its ranks as early as 2025, bringing the number of Portuguese riders on the team to five

One, two, three, four, five. Five Portuguese cyclists will be part of the World Tour peloton in the same team in 2025, after Gonçalo Tavares confirmed his transfer from his current team, Hagens Berman Axeon, to UAE Team Emirates.

Tavares, according to sports daily O Jogo, will join the UAE's current Portuguese contingent, which includes João Almeida, Rui Oliveira, Ivo Oliveira and the most recent signing Antonio Morgado.

Gonçalo Tavares is the current Portuguese Under 23 National Champion, beating António Morgado in that race, after a brilliant 35km solo escape, having also achieved second place in the national time trial for... Morgado. This season, he was also in evidence at the Peace Race, where he finished in 11th place, and was in very good form at the end-of-year Classics.

António Morgado and Gonçalo Tavares finished their training with the Bairrada team and moved on to Axel Merckx's team, considered the best in the world at U23 level. But Tavares has matured more slowly, but no less effectively. He's a young man of immense quality, a natural climber who adapts very well to the high mountains, qualities that didn't go unnoticed by the UAE, where he was training at the end of this season, and which led the UAE team to make him a contract offer.

In 2024, he would probably race for GEN Z, the continental team for under-20s, which will make its road debut next season. Gonçalo Tavares, however, prefers to stay another year with the North American team he already knows well and thus finish his evolutionary process before the big leap.