"Enric Has The Form, The Team And A Three-Mountain Closing Block He Has Been Waiting For" — Movistar Names Mas-Led Eight-Rider Giro 2026 Squad, Uijtdebroeks The Mountain Co-Card, Romeo The Stage 1 Nessebar TT
Sunday morning Pamplona. Six days from the 9 May Nessebar Grande Partenza, Movistar Team close out the 2026 Giro d'Italia squad lottery with the team's most explicitly GC-protected Corsa Rosa roster of the post-Valverde era. Enric Mas rides as protected GC leader on a parcours that fits him better than any Grand Tour he has started since the 2023 Vuelta a España — three closing-week mountain stages, a 21.3km closing San Pellegrino in Alpe time trial, and only one bunch-sprint stage in the third week.
The eight-rider squad confirmed at the team's Saturday-evening Pamplona press centre runs Mas, Cian Uijtdebroeks, Iván Romeo, Javier Romo, Einer Rubio, Juan Pedro López, Raúl García Pierna and Pavel Novák. The roster carries the highest pre-Giro climbing-watts-per-kilo aggregate Movistar have priced since the 2018 Andorra Mas debut, the cleanest sign yet that the team are riding the Corsa Rosa as a single-leader GC project rather than the dual-objective stage-and-points campaign of the past three editions.
Uijtdebroeks rides as the second mountain card and a podium-or-better second leader on the closing week's Mottolino-Bormio queen stage. The 22-year-old Belgian arrives at Movistar in 2026 after a turbulent 2025 at Visma-Lease a Bike that produced one DNF and zero stage wins. The DS José Joaquín Rojas at the Saturday-evening press call: "Cian rides as our second card on the Mottolino. Movistar have not had two protected GC riders on a closing-week queen stage of a Grand Tour since 2018. He is the rider who lets us play that hand."
Romeo rides as the Stage 1 Nessebar TT card, the cleanest single-stage stage-line Movistar have priced since the 2022 Hungary Grande Partenza. The 21.3km Nessebar opener sits on a flat coastal parcours that should reward a pure TT specialist, and Romeo's 1.42-watts-per-kilo prologue at the Volta a Catalunya in late March is the second-fastest split a Movistar TT rider has produced in a stage-race opener of any type since the 2019 Giro Bologna prologue. The book opens Romeo at 9/1 outright for Stage 1 behind Vingegaard at 4/9 and Magnier at 5/2.
The López brief is the closing-week mountain shadow on Mas. Pedro López rode the same role at the 2024 Giro for the team and produced the highest closing-week climbing watts-per-kilo of any non-leader Movistar rider in three editions. Rubio is briefed for the medium-mountain breakaway days — Stage 8 Asiago, Stage 13 Sappada, Stage 17 Ravanusa — with explicit clearance to ride for stage wins if the GC has settled. Rubio's stage line for the three medium-mountain days is priced at 11/2 outright, the second-shortest non-favourite line on the parcours after Pedersen at Stage 9 Foggia.
The roster averages 26.8 years of age, the youngest Movistar Giro lineup since the 2018 Andorra Mas debut. García Pierna and Novák are both Grand Tour debutants. Novák rolls in on a 9.4 watts-per-kilo Volta a Catalunya queen-stage segment that put him 12th on the Vallter 2000 finish — the second-fastest Movistar split into a top-twenty Grand Tour stage finish across the spring calendar. The internal expected-value model puts the team at 1.2 stage wins, 0.6 podium probability for Mas, and 0.3 maglia rosa probability for at least one stage of the closing week.
Mas's only public statement at the Pamplona press call: "I have been preparing for this Giro for six months. Pamplona is the right city to start from. I am ready." The squad flies to Sofia on Tuesday afternoon, with a Wednesday morning Stage 1 closing-50km recon at Nessebar at race pace and a Thursday afternoon training ride at the Plovdiv-Sofia closing 50km on Stage 3. The Stage 1 Nessebar TT bike fit is at 11:00 Wednesday at the start ramp.
The decision to lead with Mas rather than Uijtdebroeks closes out the closing question of the 2026 Movistar GC campaign. The 31-year-old Spaniard rides on a contract that runs to the end of the 2027 season, with the Tour de France leadership for 2026 confirmed to Uijtdebroeks. The Vuelta a España leadership has not yet been confirmed and is the closing question of the Movistar 2026 calendar.