OFFICIAL: Cian Uijtdebroeks 2026 season debut confirmed as new era begins for Belgian GC prospect at Movistar Team

Cian Uijtdebroeks will begin his Movistar Team career on 4 February at the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, the Spanish stage race now confirmed as his first appearance in new colours. The debut locks in the opening scene of a transfer that was never about noise or drama, but about direction.

Leaving Team Visma | Lease a Bike early was a major call for a rider still in the first phase of his professional career. But Uijtdebroeks has been clear about what he wants his future to look like.

“If I have to follow my heart, I want to ride the Grand Tours and compete for the GC. That is also my ambition for the coming years,” he said after the move was confirmed.

Valencia, with its mix of a time trial and hard mountain stages, offers an early test of exactly that ambition.

The move was not framed as a fallout. It was framed as a divergence.

Visma CEO Richard Plugge explained that the gap between what Uijtdebroeks wanted and what the team could realistically offer had become too wide. “The ambitions of Cian and of the team started to grow apart. At this moment, we cannot offer Cian the role and the program that he sees as essential for his development,” he said, adding that after “very open and sincere discussions” the team agreed to let him take “a new step in his career.”

That context matters. Uijtdebroeks was not escaping pressure. He was looking for responsibility. Movistar, rebuilding its long-term identity, saw exactly what they wanted to see in that mindset.

Movistar signed Uijtdebroeks on a deal running through 2029 and presented the move as a future-focused decision, built around his climbing, time trial potential and Grand Tour profile. While their announcement leaned more on vision than soundbites, the message was clear: this is not a short-term signing, and not a secondary project.

That intent now gets its first on-road expression in Valencia.

The five-day race includes a time trial and multiple mountain stages through the mid-range climbs of eastern Spain. It is not a soft introduction, with riders like Remco Evenepoel, Joao Almeida and Mikel Landa expected on the start list, but it is a perfectly shaped proving ground for a rider who wants to be measured on GC terms.

Valencia is only the beginning of a carefully shaped first season with Movistar. His confirmed spring includes Itzulia Basque Country, La Fleche Wallonne and Liege Bastogne Liege, blending stage-race leadership with exposure to the hardest one-day terrain in cycling.

Later in the year, he will ride the Tour de France for the first time. That alone underlines why the move mattered to him. He did not change teams to hide in the bunch. He changed teams to chase a specific future.

That future now has a date, a place and a start line. February 4 in Valencia is not just a season debut. It is the first real step in the version of Cian Uijtdebroeks that he believes he can become.