Nobody won Stage 11 of the Vuelta a España on Wednesday in Bilbao, as race organizers chose to neutralize the stage due to huge groups of anti-genocide protestors at the finish line. Thousands gathered and waved Palestinian flags in in protest of the inclusion of second-tier team Israel–Premier Tech (IPT), and as Jonas Vingegaard and Tom Pidcock were riding toward town, organizers said over race radio that the stage would be neutralized three kilometers out "due to some incidents at the finish line."
Wednesday's action was not the first protest of the race, nor of the day. Since the Vuelta rode into Spain on Stage 5, IPT has been targeted by protestors, who understandably have a problem with a team being allowed to race for and advertise the country currently conducting a genocide in Gaza. Protestors carrying a banner reading, in Spanish, "Neutrality is Complicity. Boycott Israel," got on the road during IPT's Stage 5 team time trial, forcing the team, at the time running in last place, to a complete stop. Organizers awarded the team 15 seconds and vowed to "take action" against protestors.
"It’s really upsetting for us as a team, upsetting for the riders, a lot of guys are shaken up by the incident," IPT director Daryl Impey said after Stage 5, on the same day the country on his team's jersey killed 61 people.
Protests heated up as the race wound its way into the Basque Country. Solidarity with Palestine has been notably strong in Spain in general and in the Basque Country in particular, and the IPT bus has been greeted with protests at several points this week. Protestors got on the road in an attempt to halt Stage 10, on the same day Israel starved 13 Palestinians to death and killed over 100 in attacks around Gaza; Intermarché's Simone Petilli crashed while avoiding them. Stage 11 was briefly halted as protestors spread across the road near the start, and the climb up the Alto del Vivero was disrupted by people carrying a banner denouncing Israel's genocide. People also lined the road carrying small effigies, in reference to the brutal toll Israel's campaign of extermination has had on Gaza's children, who have been killed in the tens of thousands. According to medical experts, an average of 10 children were losing one or two limbs per day during the worst months of the genocide.
What does that have to do with the Vuelta? Israel–Premier Tech is owned by Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, an avid cyclist and dedicated Zionist whose life's work is the fusion of his two passions. Adams, a close friend of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spent some $23 million to bring the start of the 2018 Giro d'Italia to Israel (he also paid big money to get Madonna to perform at Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv). He attended Donald Trump's inauguration, has been referred to as "Israel's unofficial ambassador" by organizations he runs, and spent June agitating for Trump to attack Iran, days before Trump attacked Iran.
Over the past few seasons, Adams's team has bounced between the WorldTour and the Pro-Continental circuit, though IPT has raced most of the major races on the calendar, and Michael Woods even won a stage of the 2023 Tour de France. Adams has spent big, signing four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome in 2021, along with Ruben Plaza, Andre Greipel, and Dan Martin. The team's been mildly successful on the road—a Vuelta win here, a Giro win there—though the point of Adams's investment is less to win bicycle races than to be seen participating in them, laundering the image of Israel in the process. Adams and the UCI were eager to take credit for the 2021 evacuation of Afghan cyclists, and when admonished for overplaying what was largely a mendacious PR move, he bombarded human rights activist Shannon Galpin—who actually did the work he took credit for—with vile, racist WhatsApp messages.
This year's Vuelta protests have been the largest and most well-organized against IPT, though the team has faced plenty of justified anger since its inception, and especially over the past two years. In Toulouse a month ago, a protestor wearing a shirt reading "Israel out of the Tour" was tackled and beaten by a race organizer at the finish of Stage 11 of the Tour de France. IPT riders rarely spoke to the press at the Tour, and the team's bus was guarded at all times by several gendarmes wielding huge firearms. The team is rumored to be considering a name change for next year, though reps have thus far denied it.
Having to launder a genocide is clearly getting to the team's riders. Alessandro de Marchi, who spent 2021 and 2022 with IPT, said he was "happy and relieved" not to be on the team anymore after the Toulouse protest. "I would have really struggled to be there now and been in great difficulty," the 39-year-old Italian told the Observer. "I won’t criticize anyone riding there because everyone is free to decide, but right now I wouldn’t sign a contract with Israel. I wouldn’t be able to manage the feelings I have, to be able to be involved in something like that." Last month, former Tour de France top-10 finisher Derek Gee sued his way out of his IPT contract, saying "certain issues simply made my continuation at the team untenable."
For his part, Adams spent Stage 11, held the same day Israel killed at least 73 Palestinians, in the IPT team car to get an up-close look at what his riders are dealing with. Hopefully, he will not have many more chances to do so, as several teams reportedly have asked organizers to kick IPT out of the race. According to The Cycling Podcast's Daniel Friebe, representatives from the teams and the riders' union met with race organizers and asked for IPT to leave. If the organizers care about their bike race, that seems like a wise choice.
