The big cycling days usually end in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday. Stages and classics with attacks, defenses and counterattacks. But that's not in December. It was 16 minutes after 5 p.m. on the second Saturday of December when Jumbo, which will be renamed Visma from 2024, announced the hiring of Cian Uijtdebroeks, a real trick on Bora, to whom it hit back for having snatched away Roglic .
Shortly after finishing the Vuelta a España, with Roglic in third place on the podium, behind his teammates Kuss and Vingegaard, the Slovenian decided to break his contract with the Dutch team after eight seasons. It did not take long to learn that the winner of the 2023 Giro and three Vueltas, 34 years old, the oldest of the Magnificent Six (Van der Poel, Pogacar, Vingegaard, Van Aert, Evenepoel and Roglic), had signed with Bora.
It seemed logical that Jumbo, a team that galvanized the three big three-week races, was not going to sit idly by but waited to make its next move. Until December 9, he discovered his plan: to stay with Uitjdebroeks, one of the great promises of current cycling.
Or rather, steal it from Bora, who exploded in anger. “Cian is and will remain a member of the Bora-Hansgrohe team in the coming season. He has a contract with us until December 31, 2024,” the German team was blunt.
“The agreement between Uijtdebroeks and Bora was terminated on December 1. The legal procedures were initiated by Cian and the UCI is aware of the termination,” explained agent agency A.
Bora wants financial compensation of one million euros for the loss. The daily bread in football and something that is increasingly common in cycling. It also happened with Carlos Rodríguez, although in the case of the Granada native it was because he and Ineos decided to continue together when the cyclist had already committed.
One of the reasons why the secret could not be kept longer since this week the teams are already doing their first winter stages for 2024. Visma, still wearing the Jumbo jerseys, is in Calpe (Alicante) and among the cyclists who are training with the group is Uijtdebroeks. He wears everything in black, without any advertising, including the helmet, but he already rides the Cervélo bicycle. Roglic hides less, who in Palma de Mallorca exercises on his new S-Works, Bora's bike.
“We followed Cian since his junior days,” defends Jumbo sports director Merijn Zeeman. "When the opportunity arose to sign him starting December 1, we didn't hesitate. Cian fits perfectly into our team," says Zeeman, who goes even further: "We see him as a future leader of our team."
Exaggerated? At 20 years old, the young Belgian has already won the Tour del Avenir (2022) and this year he was able to place sixth in Romandie, seventh in the Tour of Switzerland, eighth in the Tour of Spain and ninth in the Volta a Catalunya. If the judicial imbroglio proves them right, Uijtdebroeks could gain experience in the Giro d'Italia, waiting to see if he can be a useful weapon for Vingegaard in the Tour of the jump-off, which leaves Florence on June 29. But at the moment the boy is the talk of the peloton with a controversial transfer.
