On the stage racing side, Spain seems to be already well covered with Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodriguez, two riders who have all it takes to also aim for the podium in the Grand Tours. But they are not the only ones, because the Giro Next Gen, the race that consecrated Ayuso in the Colpack jersey, also brought the limelight Pablo Torres (UAE Team Emirates) e Pau Martí (Israel-PremierTech), second and third respectively in the final ranking, behind Jarno Widar.
Torres, from Madrid, is hardly a first year, born in 2005. Last year he was one of the best Spanish juniors with the San Sebastián de los Reyes shirt and Joxean Matxin, who knows a lot about talents, didn’t let it slip away. «I only started cycling 4-5 years ago – said Torres -. I’ve always liked cycling, I watched the Tour and the Vuelta with my grandfather in the summer but for one reason or another I had never jumped on the saddle. When I started I wasn’t anything special, but as the months went by I improved a lot and now I find myself here, I’m curious to see what the future holds for me.”
Apart from the Italian U23 classics, this year Torres has practically always and only raced with the professionals, including Challenge Mallorca, Settimana Coppi&Bartali, Giro d’Abruzzo and Vuelta Asturias. Thin and not particularly tall, he seems to be the prototype of the climber: «Racing with professionals allows you to acquire a lot of experience and learn to manage the key moments of a race – continues the 18 year old born in Madrid, who has Tour, Vuelta and Il Lombardia -. On the flat you go fast and this only increases your power. I think the races I did with the professionals helped me a lot at the Giro Next Gen. I have good recovery skills, so yes, I see myself as a stage racer. But it’s too early to say, it’s the first year I’ve raced at this level.”
The young Madrid native is in the right team to try to take flight: «I’m in this team so many runners to take inspiration from. Pogačar first and foremost, but also Ayuso and Del Toro. If I go back to when I was younger, however, I remember that my first idol was Alejandro Valverde. To think that last year I was watching these runners on television and now I’m running with them is truly incredible. They are all experiences that I must be able to exploit and enjoy to the fullest.”
Pau Martí, for its part, is a little more structured, more powerful. It’s with the academy of Israel-Premier Tech since last year and, after a year of apprenticeship, it is starting to emerge with ever greater conviction. «I think I’m a pretty complete runner, I’m a good climber but I also really like the one-day classics (he finished 3rd in the Fleche Ardennaise, ed.). I started in a cycling school in my city, Moixent (near Valencia, ed.), doing especially cyclocross, while I kept the road for the summer – said Martí, who not surprisingly has a cyclocross rider like Mathieu Van der Poel as his idol -. Then as a second year junior I started to get good results on the road and then I decided to try to focus on that. Israel gave me this opportunity and now I’m trying to exploit it.”
The class of 2004 was the protagonist of a rather pyrotechnic Giro Next Gen finale. At the same time as Mathys Rondel (Tudor), he fought for the podium in the final sprint in Forlimpopoli, where he finished 20th and Rondel 25th. «It was an ending that was resolved by small details. We were equal in everything, only the placings mattered to overthrow him I had to finish at least two positions ahead of him. So I launched myself into a sprint, I remained a bit closed in the last 50 meters but then I found a hole and pushed hard. What an ending! I didn’t expect the podium, a Top 5 would have already been an excellent result, but as the days went by I saw that I was better, that my position was improving and so I wanted to try until the end.”
In short, after having struggled to find the worthy heirs of Contador, Purito and Valverde, Spain can look to the future with ever greater confidence: «There is a good generation that is coming up, but we must not be in a hurry, we are young, we need time to grow and demonstrate all our potential” said both Martí and Torres.
