Just weeks after the Vuelta a España was brought to a standstill by pro-Palestine activists protesting against Israel-Premier Tech’s participation in the race, the president of the Israeli Cycling Federation has raised the possibility that the nation could stage the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in the future.
Israel hosted the opening stages of the Giro d’Italia in 2018, the first time a grand tour had started outside Europe, a decision which led to 120 human rights groups issuing an ultimately unsuccessful appeal to the Giro organisers to ditch their plans due to what they described as the state’s “grave and escalating violations of international law and Palestinians’ human rights”.
And, now, in the midst of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has already been broken several times in the three weeks since it was declared, Dafna Lang, the president of the Israeli Cycling Federation, has said that staging the start of cycling’s biggest race in Israel remains a “dream”.
According to L’Équipe, Lang and Sylvan Adams, the Israeli-Canadian billionaire who spearheaded Israel’s Giro bid in 2018 and who recently stepped away from his position as Israel-Premier Tech’s figurehead, have been mulling over the idea of eventually bidding to host the Tour’s Grand Départ.
“I can’t tell you right now that we’re going to bid for the Tour de France or organise it, but we never stop dreaming,” Lang told the French sports newspaper.
“I can’t speak for Sylvan Adams, but I believe that once we have a stable peace, we will realise many projects at the highest level by welcoming the world.
“We are very optimistic people. We’ve already brought the Giro here; anything is possible.”
However, Lang noted that she is yet to discuss an Israeli bid for the Tour with UCI president David Lappartient.
Nevertheless, Adams claimed last year that he had been in discussions with Tour organisers ASO “so that they follow the example of the Giro, by initiating the start of this legendary race in Israel”.
When contacted by L’Équipe, ASO declined to comment.
The prospect, however remote at the moment, of a Tour de France Grand Départ in Israel comes at the end of a season characterised by increasingly robust protests against the Israel-Premier Tech squad.
These protests against the team, which while not officially state-owned was established with the aim of promoting a ‘modern vision’ of Israel, and its participation in cycling’s biggest races took place at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, and reached fever pitch at last month’s Vuelta a España.
The Spanish grand tour saw activists run onto the course and into the peloton, roads blocked, clashes between police and protesters, and stage finishes abruptly cancelled, including on the final day in Madrid, where several mass protests spilled over into street violence.
The tension on the roads of Spain and elsewhere has raised concerns about next year’s Tour de France Grand Départ in Barcelona, making the timing of Lang’s suggestion of an Israeli Tour start even more bizarre.
The team also withdraw from the series of autumn one-day races in Italy due to security fears, along with changing their kit at other events to avoid reference to Israel.
Meanwhile, former riders Jakob Fuglsang and Alesandro De Marchi have spoken out about their unease at riding in IPT colours, and the team is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Derek Gee after the Canadian rider ripped up his contract citing concerns about safety and his own personal beliefs.
And at the start of October, just days before a ceasefire and hostage deal was agreed to tentatively end the fighting in Gaza, things also came to a head in the sporting world, with Israel-Premier Tech announcing that it will change its name and identity from the start of the 2026 season.
That means the team will no longer operate with the Israel name or with Israeli nationality, while owner Sylvan Adams – a vocal supporter of Israel’s actions in Gaza – will take a step back and no longer speak on behalf of the team.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters launched an attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. This attack sparked Israel’s latest military campaign in Gaza, where over 67,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the past two years, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run health ministry.
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
12 thoughts on ““We never stop dreaming”: Israel “optimistic” about hosting Tour de France Grand Départ in future”
If ASO did this they will do
If ASO did this they will do great damage to the brand of the Tour. And hence to road cycling as a sport more widely.
If they have the Grand Depart
If they have the Grand Depart in Israel, the course will have to avoid the Gaza Strip until the corpses and rubble have been cleared.
To be pedantic, despite what
To be pedantic, despite what Israel has done to it and the parts it has occupied, the Gaza Strip is not, and never has been, part of Israel, so an Israel grand depart wouldn’t actually be going there whatever the circumstances.
Having a stage starting in a
Having a stage starting in a country doesn’t preclude it from going through adjacent countries.
I drew Gaza in to highlight the (in my view) atrocities recently committed by Israel and the absurdly premature mention of a Grand Depart.
I think we all hope that political progress and circumstances eventually get us to a point (5-10 years?) where holding TDF stages would be uncontroversial.
Mr Blackbird wrote:
It raises the question of how does a state that has committed genocide ever regain international standing? There would presumably need to be contrition, admission that they did actually commit genocide, an enormous apology, a commitment never to do it again, reparations, compensation, truth and justice commission etc. Right now that all seems like a very distant prospect.
That is a good question, and
That is a good question, and there are several models.
I guess the US (towards native peoples) would be able to help with advice – I think there’s continuity of ruling system there? In that case it seems mostly “passage of time” over reparations (but with a bit of affirmative action eg. reserved educational opportunities).
Japan’s actions in Korea as coloniser, then China etc. aren’t usually cited as genocide although arguably quite brutal enough (and they forced the Koreans to change to Japanese names). And there was a political change at the end of the war albeit the “head of state” remained. That seems to show that “behaving differently” might count more than saying sorry – still a vexed issue though.
Another model is Turkey and the Armenians – that’s the “nothing to see” *. Just telling people that you were pushed around and were defending yourself and anyway it didn’t happen as “a thing” (and indeed funding academics to disseminate that story).
I suspect that one is the closest to what might happen (not in the actual events I hasten to add but what came after).
In fact perhaps those with most helpful things to say in advice would be found in Rwanda or in the Balkans? Far from great outcomes but peace has mostly been restored and perhaps people can start to find new ways of coexisting?
* indeed having written this it’s probably unwise for me to ever visit – “offending Turkishness” could see me fined or imprisoned.
(Ignoring Germany simply due
(Ignoring Germany simply due to a major change in regime) – then there’s … the UK, which has famously been involved in war crimes, massacres and mass repression, although I don’t believe the consensus holds we’ve crossed the threshold…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_genocide
Pub bike wrote:
All that plus ideally some element of regime change and the passage of time.
Theres more chance of me
Theres more chance of me sharing a hot tub with Ana de Armas.
Dafna Lang, the president of
despite protests by over 120 human rights organisations.
except that Israel is now facing allegations of genocide from the ICJ and the UN due to its recent actions in Gaza, that are on a scale an order of magnitude worse than abuses that had been happening prior to 2018, so it would’ve been more appropriate – and less hubristic – to say anything is possible with the exception of hosting the grand depart now or anytime in the near future. Netherlands is still boycotting Israel’s participation in Eurovision for example.
Israel is an apartheid state.
Israel is an apartheid state. It is brutally occupying millions of Palestinians and killing them daily, and stealing their homes and arbitrarily kidnapping them. There is plenty of evidence out there – including from human rights groups in Israel. Israel has murdered hundreds of Palestinians since the so called ‘cease fire’ came into effect. They don’t give a crap about Palestinian life. Civil society should boycott Israel.
One observation; the
One observation; the quotation comes from “Dafna Lang, the president of the Israeli Cycling Federation”. I’m going to assume he lives in Israel, there’s a decent chance his news comes from Israeli sources and if he’s like most people, then his online environment is largely populated by like-minded people.
It’s therefore entirely possible that through no fault of his own he has a very different perspective on what’s been going on in Gaza and may honestly believe that “a bit heavy handed, but generally with the backing of the educated free world” is a fair description of the global perception of Israel’s conduct … in which case he could reasonably believe this will all blow over within a few years of the cessation of hostilities and the TdF Grand Depart (maybe with a stage into a Palestinian state, once established) could be part of Israel’s “welcome back”. Bless his little cotton socks.