Protests, banners, tacks and crashes lead pro cycling team to remove ‘Israel’ from its jerseys

Pro-Palestinian protesters invade the circuit of La Vuelta race as one holds a placard reading ‘Free Palestine’ in the center of Madrid on Sept. 14 Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images

By Louis Keene September 16, 2025

By the time the Vuelta a España was called off 31 miles short of the finish line, a new precedent had been set around Israeli competition in international sports.

Pro-Palestinian protesters who crowded and eventually blocked the route of the Spanish cycling tour to protest the involvement of the Israel Premier Tech team led the race’s organizers to cut multiple stages of the competition short. But they had also achieved something more significant: Israel’s riders had taken the country’s name off their jerseys, and other riders had questioned the country’s presence in the race.

Spanish authorities said more than 100,000 people turned out to protest the final stage of the Vuelta on Sunday, capping three weeks of escalating demonstrations that saw streets lined with Palestinian flags, objects thrown onto the course, and in at least one case protesters forcing riders to stop when they unfurled a banner across the route.

Organizers said the final stage “ended early to ensure the safety of the riders,” according to the Associated Press.

The odds-on favorite, Jonas Vingegaard, won the race, so the protesters likely had no effect on the outcome.

But their presence was nevertheless felt throughout the competition, which is one of three Grand Tours on the international cycling calendar. Vingegaard, after celebrating victory at a makeshift winner’s tent — there was no podium presentation — said, “It’s a pity that such a moment of eternity was taken from us.”

What may linger for the Israeli team is the behavior of their competitors as the protests unfolded: Some bikers reportedly asked the Israeli team to quit the race, and one cycling reporter said other riders derided Israel’s cyclists “for their assumed political views.”

The publicity disaster underscores the depth of Israel’s unpopularity abroad as the war in Gaza approaches the two-year mark amid charges of genocide. And it demonstrates the burden not only on athletes who represent Israel on the international stage, but on the competitions that allow those athletes to compete.

The irony is that only one of Israel Premier Tech’s eight riders at La Vuelta was Israeli.

Wait, Israel has a pro cycling team? 

Yes — well, sort of. Israel Premier Tech is not a state-owned team, though it has received a small amount from the country’s ministry of tourism. Instead, it is bankrolled by Sylvan Adams, a Canadian-Israeli Jewish billionaire and passionate cyclist who wanted to highlight “normal Israel” for an international audience.

Rather than develop an all-Israeli or even all-Jewish squad, Adams and his co-funder, American businessman Ron Baron, did what nearly every other national cycling team does — they recruited top riders from other countries.

At one point the team starred Chris Froome, a four-time Tour de France winner; Israel’s Vuelta team featured riders from the U.S., Canada, Italy, Czech Republic, the U.K. and New Zealand. (By comparison, the United Arab Emirates’ 2025 squad had zero homegrown riders and was headlined by a Portuguese national.)

The team does not sport an Israeli flag on its jersey, but going into La Vuelta, it had a stylized Star of David alongside the word ISRAEL, with PREMIER TECH printed underneath.

The team has won a Grand Tour stage here and there in its decade-or-so of its existence, but it does not contend for victory in any of the races, and it was not one of the 18 teams that received an automatic bid to La Vuelta. It is instead at the top of the second tier of competition — one of five teams to receive at-large bids to the race.

Adams’ stated goal of showcasing a different side of Israel has fueled accusations of “sportswashing” — the act of a state using sports to cleanse an otherwise tarnished image. And during the past two years, IPT’s participation in races have sometimes elicited protests. A fan wearing an Israeli jersey was beaten up by other fans in Toulouse during the 2025 Tour de France, leading one former IPT rider to say he would no longer feel comfortable riding for the Israeli team.

“I would have really struggled to be there now and been in great difficulty,” the rider, Alessandro de Marchi, said after the Toulouse attack. “I won’t criticise 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.”

What happened during La Vuelta?

The disruption started during a team trial during the race’s fifth stage, when protesters in Bilbao carried a banner onto the route that read, “Neutrality is Complicity. Boycott Israel,” blocking the Israeli team. Organizers awarded the team, then running in last place, 15 seconds back to compensate for the delay and vowed to protect the team from further incidents.

The protests became harder to contain. Anti-Israel banners and pro-Palestinian messages hung from buildings lining the route, tacks and nails thrown onto the route forced stages into a staccato of stops-and-starts, and there were even some crashes. Seven of the event’s final 11 days were shortened or interrupted by protests; Stage 18, planned as a 27.2-km time trial, was cut to less than half of that in advance.

Following the Bilbao protest, cycling reporter Daniel Friebe on Sept. 3 reported a “strong feeling among the riders” that the UCI, cycling’s governing body, should take action. Several teams reportedly told the cyclists’ association that they wanted IPT to drop out of the race. They were joined by La Vuelta’s technical director, Kiko Garcia.

The UCI, which condemned the Bilbao protest, did not take action against the team, and IPT pressed on, saying dropping out would set a dangerous precedent. Instead, prior to Stage 14, IPT took the word “Israel” off its jersey, leaving just a large ‘P’ and the Star of David.

Adams, who lives in Tel Aviv, said in the early days of the race that Israel was “failing miserably” in a public relations war. By its end, he had witnessed it firsthand. Yet he was unfazed by the thousands of people waving Palestinian flags on either side of him as he drove down the route in the IPT team car.

“They asked us to quit the Vuelta, but we did not surrender to the terrorists,” Adams told the publication road.cc.