Lucía Ruiz will leave Movistar Team at the end of the 2026 season and join LABORAL Kutxa-Euskadi for 2027, giving the Basque squad another young Spanish rider with several seasons of Women’s WorldTour experience.
The 22-year-old Cantabrian has spent the past three years with Movistar, making the step directly from Eneicat-CMTeam into the WorldTour ahead of the 2024 season.
Ruiz has developed primarily as a rider for rolling and medium-mountain terrain, combining the ability to survive selective racing with enough speed to contest finishes from smaller groups. LABORAL Kutxa see further room for development as she moves into a team where opportunities for individual results should be more frequent.
Ruiz leaves Movistar after three WorldTour seasons
Ruiz’s move to Movistar came after a successful period through the Spanish development ranks.
She raced as a junior with Río Miera-Meruelo, where her results included international victories at Bizkaikoloreak and the Tour du Gévaudan. She then stepped up with Eneicat and won the Spanish Elite-U23 Cup in 2023.
That progression earned Ruiz a move to Movistar from 2024. At the time, the team committed to a three-year deal running through the end of 2026, as covered when Movistar announced the signing of Lucía and Laura Ruiz Pérez.
The move exposed Ruiz to a significantly stronger race programme at a young age. She has since accumulated experience across the Women’s WorldTour and some of the biggest one-day and stage races on the calendar.
Rather than extending that spell into a fourth season, Ruiz will now move to LABORAL Kutxa in search of the next stage of her development.
LABORAL Kutxa target Ruiz’s versatility
LABORAL Kutxa describe Ruiz as particularly well suited to medium-mountain races, where her ability to remain near the front through selective terrain can be combined with a useful finish from reduced groups.
That profile should give the team another option across the large number of hilly Spanish and French races that form an important part of its calendar.
At 22, Ruiz also arrives with an unusual balance of youth and top-level experience. Three seasons inside a WorldTour structure have already exposed her to the pace, positioning and demands of the highest level without closing off the potential for her role to expand.
The switch to LABORAL Kutxa could provide more freedom to explore that side of her racing.
LABORAL Kutxa continue reshaping squad for 2027
Ruiz becomes another important part of LABORAL Kutxa-Euskadi’s recruitment for next season.
The team have already confirmed Sandra Alonso will join for 2027, adding another experienced Spanish option after her return to racing during 2026.
Those arrivals come alongside departures from the existing squad. Usoa Ostolaza, who has developed into LABORAL Kutxa’s leading general classification rider, will move to Uno-X Mobility on a three-year contract at the end of the season.
The changes leave LABORAL Kutxa rebuilding part of the group that carried much of its 2026 programme, while continuing to place Spanish and Basque development at the centre of the project.
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Ruiz fits naturally into that approach. She arrives young enough for the team to continue developing her, but with substantially more WorldTour experience than most riders making their first move into the LABORAL Kutxa structure.
After three seasons learning within Movistar, 2027 should provide a clearer indication of how far Ruiz can turn that experience into results of her own.
