The quiet Ecuadorian climber makes his Tour de France debut at 30, after five previous Grand Tour starts across the Vuelta and Giro. Cepeda served a long apprenticeship at Caja Rural before Movistar brought him to the WorldTour in 2025, and a 7th place at this spring's Tour de Romandie showed he belongs. In the high mountains he will be one of the last men pacing for Uijtdebroeks.
Palmarès
- Tour of Qinghai Lake overall winner (2024)
- Pan-American Championships road race gold (2019)
- Ecuadorian national time trial champion (2018, 2025)
- Ecuadorian national road race champion (2018)
- 7th overall Tour de Romandie (2026)
Cut-out factHis cousin is also a pro climber named Jefferson Cepeda (Jefferson Alexander, at EF) — two Ecuadorian Jefferson Cepedas in the same peloton, a permanent headache for TV commentators.
The squad
Riding the 2026 Tour with Cian Uijtdebroeks, Pablo Castrillo, 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: prensa-latina.cu, author: see source, license: see source.
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