Movistar confirmed the signing on Friday, ending a run of speculation that had been circling since late summer. The 28-year-old joins from UAE Team Emirates-XRG after two seasons and has put his name to a contract that runs through 2029.

Herregodts is not a pure climber and never was Pogacar’s mountain shadow. His value at UAE sat elsewhere: a powerful rouleur with a strong time trial, used in the Classics and on the flat days of stage races. ProCyclingUK frames his new role at Movistar as a hybrid one, splitting personal Classics ambitions with team duties alongside riders such as Jon Barrenetxea, Orluis Aular and Roger Adrià.

Reinforcing Uijtdebroeks’s project

Uijtdebroeks himself only moved to Movistar for 2026, arriving from Visma | Lease a Bike on a deal that also runs to 2029, with the Spanish team quite openly building its Grand Tour calendar around him. Herregodts now lines up alongside his compatriot in Movistar colours.

He will not, on paper, be Uijtdebroeks’s mountain lieutenant on the Angliru or the Col de la Loze. But he will give the team a reliable engine for breakaways, lead-outs and long flat pulls, the sort of work Movistar has often had to borrow from elsewhere.

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Herregodts: “a good environment to show my quality”

The rider himself leaned on the Uijtdebroeks connection when he explained the choice.

“I think the team is making a lot of progress in terms of performance and, for me, this is a good environment to show my quality,” Herregodts said in the Movistar announcement.

He added that he had spoken to Uijtdebroeks before signing, and that his new team-mate’s enthusiasm about the project had tipped the balance.

Sebastián Unzué, speaking for Movistar in the same statement, framed the move as a question of timing: “Rune joins the team at a point of full maturity, with the experience and quality needed to contribute across different terrains.”

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What UAE loses, and what Pogacar does not

For UAE Team Emirates-XRG the departure is a Classics and flat-support loss more than a Grand Tour one. Pogacar’s mountain train, built around riders such as Joao Almeida, Adam Yates, Pavel Sivakov and Jhonatan Narvaez, is untouched by this move.

Where it does bite is on the cobbles and on days where UAE needs a big rouleur to drag a break back or launch one. Herregodts had grown into exactly that role, and his Belgian title in June 2026 came as a well-sourced upset win that put him on a different rung in the market.

Movistar’s pitch to its new signing is also clear in the detail of the contract: three years, through 2029, matching Uijtdebroeks’s own window at the team. The pair will race in the same colours until at least the end of that season.

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