Movistar's bold move to fill their GC ambitions - Breaking down Cian Uijtdebroeks' career before joining Spanish team

Enric Mas has been Movistar Team’s reference rider in Grand Tours for more than half a decade and, since Alejandro Valverde’s retirement in 2022, also the team’s leading figure. Yet he has not won a race since that year (Giro dell’Emilia) and has only stood on the podium once in the six Grand Tours he has ridden since.

That is why, with the Telefónica-backed squad traditionally committed to GC ambitions, they made a bold market move last winter by signing Cian Uijtdebroeks, a star project that did not click at Visma and which we will now see if it works for them.

It was a more than interesting move given that, budget-wise, Eusebio Unzué’s team cannot afford marquee stars or the hottest prospects (whether talented youngsters or established veterans, they mostly go to UAE, Red Bull, Lidl and INEOS).

After winning the Tour de l’Avenir with authority in 2022, he stepped up to the Red Bull - BORA Hansgrohe team in 2023 at just 20 years of age. His season was highly encouraging, finishing in the top 10 at all five stage races he contested.

His consistency stood out, and above all that eighth place on debut in a three-week race, the Vuelta, which confirmed him as one of the riders with the brightest future.

However, perhaps poorly advised by his representatives, perhaps by his own doing, he became fixated on leaving what was then simply BORA, without Red Bull backing, to join Visma. He had a contract, but managed to break it and the Dutch team paid his release clause. That move ensured he was in the spotlight more than he needed and loaded him with pressure, like it or not, heading into 2024.

He started 2024 with optimism and similar results, finishing in the top 10 at O Gran Camiño and Tirreno–Adriatico. But after an uneven campaign, he abandoned the Volta a Catalunya due to fatigue and everything unraveled from there. He failed to finish the Giro d’Italia when he was tracking well on GC, and also the Vuelta a España where he was not shining. He was off the pace in both Suisse and Burgos. In short, after a promising 2023, 2024 ended abruptly with doubts and poor sensations.

By early 2025, only months after Visma had paid his clause, the relationship already seemed beyond repair. The Belgian was not set to ride any Grand Tour.

He was not going to get a shot at leadership in major WorldTour races, and the team’s messages grew increasingly pointed until delivering the clearest snub for riders on the way out: a start at the Tour of Guangxi. Even so, it was the year of his first stage-race victory:

In the end, the Belgian accepted Movistar Team’s offer, which promised full confidence.