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news
Israel-Premier Tech (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)Israel-Premier Tech cycling team face more protests at Tour Down Under as campaigners call for "no sport with apartheid"
Israel-Premier Tech will race this week's Tour Down Under in Australia to the backdrop of more protests over their participation.
The team, aiming to defend British rider Stephen Williams' victory at the race last year, is aware of the protests and told road.cc this morning they "respect everyone's right to free speech", so the events "do not pose a problem".
A spokesperson explained that the team has "worked closely with the race organisers and relevant parties to ensure that any protests do not impact the race, nor our right to participate".
One such protest was arranged for Saturday's pre-Tour Down Under criterium in Adelaide and a further protest is planned by the Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) when Friday's fourth stage finishes in Victor Harbor. On Saturday, away from the race, the Cyclists 4 Palestine group is also holding a protest in Sydney against the team's participation.
Protesters have claimed Israel-Premier Tech's presence at the race "breaches international law obligations to comprehensively sanction Israel" and demanded "Santos [the race's lead sponsor] and Australian Government to break sporting ties with apartheid Israel".
One of the groups planning protests, AFOPA, has told followers to avoid "obstructing or interfering" with the racing and has advised protesters to "stand back from the fence so that flags and placards do not stray over the fence putting cyclists at risk". The group also urged followers to "not interfere with the public's enjoyment of the event by blocking their view or by chanting".
Ahead of Saturday's criterium, AFOPA welcomed news of a ceasefire, but said it "is not enough".
"There must be an end to the occupation of the Palestinians and an end to Israel's apartheid regime," the group said in a statement. "We continue our demands on the Australian Government to sanction Israel and implement measures to force Israel to obey international law.
"This ceasefire is all the more reason for us to come together to rally and march in protest at the inclusion of the Israel-Premier Tech cycling team in the Tour Down Under."
Addressing the protests, an Israel-Premier Tech spokesperson today told road.cc: "Israel – Premier Tech respects everyone's right to free speech so the protests planned at the Tour Down Under do not pose a problem. We are excited to race in Adelaide and are motivated to achieve our goal of defending the race title. We have worked closely with the race organisers and relevant parties to ensure that any protests do not impact the race, nor our right to participate."
The team won last year's Tour Down Under with Welsh rider Williams, who also won the final stage to Mount Lofty. Despite their name, the squad racing in Australia this week has no Israeli athletes competing, the team consisting of British rider Williams, two Australians, two Canadians, and two riders from New Zealand.
It will not be the first time the team has faced protests at a race. At last year's Tour of Britain team staff were confronted by a pro-Palestine group.
Earlier in the season the team removed Israel's name from their team's vehicles as a "precautionary measure". The UCI ProTour team of Chris Froome and Michael Woods told us they "continue to race proudly as Israel – Premier Tech" but took the decision to replace explicit mention of Israel with an "IPT monogram, comprised of the Star of David and the Premier Tech 'PT', on the team vehicles and other branded elements".
The team referenced "a number of precautionary measures ahead of the 2024 season" which were taken to try to ensure rider safety amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, one such measure being that riders were given unmarked training kit in November.
In January 2024, the team's most famous rider, four-time Tour de France winner Froome appeared in a video posted on social media by Israel's Foreign Ministry and the official State of Israel to promote a cycling event to support Gaza hostages.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
- KiwiMike 28 min 18 sec ago
Maybe it will get tested, and we'll know for sure.
- stonojnr 56 min 24 sec ago
I thought civilians processed all the work around the submissions,filtered the obviously no action ones, sent the letters out etc, but the choice...
- stonojnr 1 hour 3 min ago
the contrast with how this close pass was dealt with by the magistrates, and the story from the live blog about how 5 close passes were dealt with...
- andystow 2 hours 6 min ago
This morning's commute was -10 °F / -23 °C. I doubt the relative humidity is really that low. The dew point might be -30 °C, but that's still 30%...
- lonpfrb 2 hours 13 min ago
IC confirmation bias at it's finest, and not the facts of the matter IMHO.
- lonpfrb 2 hours 17 min ago
Not always as the ML models can be provided already trained for reuse, thus avoiding the training process where that 'I' is required because it's...
- Sriracha 3 hours 9 min ago
I thought bikes for general use had a shorter reach and a higher stack, compared to pro-race machines which have a longer reach over a lower stack....
- ErnieC 3 hours 47 min ago
Exactly. I wonder why so many are OK with UAE and Bahrain competing when clearly they should not be there.
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17 comments
They shouldn't have been allowed to race under that team name or banner for a long time, but the UCI wouldn't get involved, funny, it took them long enough to ban Russia and Belarus, but they managed that fine.
It doesn't matter who they are sponsored or owned by, like the previous comment. They are promoting a "country" that is committing mass genocide unstopped and sometimes aided by others.
You could apply the same to Palestine, given that Hamas, who are also charged by the ICJ, are the government of Gaza. I'm up for a protest against the action of the Israeli government, and indeed, I've actually participated in some. But there is a slippage whereby all things Israeli are conflated with the actions of the government.
By the way, is there another country which you consider as a "country"?
I'm sure if there was a world tour cycling team sponsored by a prominent Gazan businessman whose stated aim was to promote Hamas and its actions there would quite rightly be an outcry and they would not be allowed to compete. The founder of IPT quite clearly stated that its aim is to promote the nation of Israel globally, if you are promoting a nation you are de facto promoting its government and its actions. IPT is not just a team that happens to be Israeli, it's a team that was specifically established to promote and support Israel.
You win the Whataboutery award of the week.
Also I think you are confused. There is no ICJ case against Palestine. There is not only a case before the ICJ regarding the genocide in Gaza, but there had already been a previous case regarding the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territories, on which the ICJ ruled last year - Israel is committing the war crime of illegal occupation.
Additionally - and this where I think you have confused the ICJ and ICC - there are ICC arrest warrants out for notorious war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu Yoav Gallant, and Mohammed Deif (Hamas military commander). The latter is believed dead. The 2 former I hope will meet their natural end after the longest possible spell in the UN unit at Schevening prison.
I hope they do too.
That didn't really seem to bother anyone when we were dealing with apartheid South Africa, and it really shouldn't bother anyone now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City_(song) ?
fair point. To be honest, Bahrain and UAE are much more like apartheid in the South African "separate development " sense. We should boycott those teams. Israel's government is far worse than apartheid.
Exactly. I wonder why so many are OK with UAE and Bahrain competing when clearly they should not be there.
Oh please do stop being logical.
Your reminder that the IPT team is NOT sponsored by the (abhorrent) Israeli government, but by a businessman. Unlike UAE and Bahrain teams, who are sponsored by (abhorrent) governments.
Russian teams are banned. So Israeli teams should be too.
Either sport is neutral, and we let Russian and Israeli (registered) sports teams race, or we ban /all/ teams from countries that have active ICJ proceedings against them (never mind actual definitive rulings from said highest court that they have been engaging in the *war crime* of occupation for decades).
That would involve banning Palestinian teams, given that ICJ is also prosecuting the government of Gaza.
I'm up for giving the Israeli government a very hard time, but why also involve any innocent Israeli citizen in this? Or in the case of the IPT owner, a Canadian-Israeli joint citizen.
Complete whataboutery. Regardless, the same standards that apply to Russia should apply to Israel and the oh-so-many Palestinian teams we see on TV cycling in pro races.
IPT are explicitly registered as an Israeli team btw.
Last time I looked Russia was banned due to state sponsored doping, not due to human rights violations.
That is not so, on March 1, 2022 the UCI banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and teams from international competition in response to the invasion of Ukraine; in 2023 they rescinded the ban on individual athletes but kept the ban on teams. Russia was previously banned by the IOC for state-sponsored doping, but that ban expired after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics; the current Olympic ban (introduced 2023) is for "a blatant violation of the Olympic truce" for annexing Ukraine's Olympic Federation.
A businessman who set up the team to (in his own words), promote Israel. As soon as you put the country in the name of the team they become a representative for it.