Belgium's next great stage-race hope finally gets his Tour de France debut — as an outright team leader at just 23. Uijtdebroeks has twice broken contracts to chart his own path, walking out on Bora–Hansgrohe for Visma and then leaving Visma early when they couldn't promise him a 2026 Grand Tour, signing with Movistar through 2029. After a 2025 season wrecked by a back injury and being hit by a car, the Tour de l'Avenir winner arrives in Barcelona as the centerpiece of Movistar's rebuild.
Palmarès
- Tour de l'Avenir overall winner (2022)
- 8th overall Vuelta a España on Grand Tour debut (2023)
- Tour de l'Ain overall winner (2025)
- 7th overall Tour de Suisse (2023)
- 7th overall Tirreno–Adriatico (2024)
- 8th overall Volta a Catalunya (2026)
Cut-out factHe has been compared to Remco Evenepoel since his junior days — and is one of very few riders ever to break contracts at two different superteams before turning 23.
The squad
Riding the 2026 Tour with Pablo Castrillo, Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda, Raúl García Pierna, Michel Hessmann, Nelson Oliveira, Javier Romo, Einer Rubio — see the full Movistar team page.
Portrait: AI paper-collage render (gpt-image-2) after a reference photograph — source: Wikimedia Commons, author: Foveon producciones, license: CC BY-SA 4.0.
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