Israel-Premier Tech’s title sponsor has stepped down, stating the “core reason to sponsor the team has been overshadowed to a point where it has become untenable for us to continue”.
The Canada-based manufacturing company Premier Tech has been a title sponsor of the Israeli cycling team since 2022 but had joined bike sponsor Factor in urging the team to drop ‘Israel’ from its name following an end-of-season dominated by protests and exclusions for races.
Now, in a statement, Premier Tech confirmed it is walking away from its sponsorship of the team with immediate effect, a decision which came following “multiple discussions” and “careful assessment of all relevant circumstances”.
“Although we took notice of the team’s decision to change its name for the 2026 season, the core reason for Premier Tech to sponsor the team has been overshadowed to a point where it has become untenable for us to continue as a sponsor,” the statement explained.
“First and foremost, we want to thank the team — riders and staff — for the four unforgettable seasons by their side, and to acknowledge their incredible accomplishments and professionalism, both on and off the road.
“We have been involved in cycling for 30 years, but above all, we are passionate about our industries, our markets, our clients, and our team members since 1923. They are at the very heart of our purpose and why Premier Tech exists. We want each of these stakeholders to feel enthusiastic and proud to be associated with Premier Tech, its brands, its products, and its services.
“Premier Tech’s ambition in cycling has always been to build bridges across all levels of the sport, paving the way for athletes and staff to achieve their full potential. Supporting the growth of the sport, alongside the development of Québec and Canadian cyclists, is at the heart of this commitment — and will remain so in the future.”
Protests against Israel-Premier Tech’s presence at the Vuelta escalated as the race developed, the Bilbao stage neutralised and final stage, in Madrid, abandoned after protesters stormed the finish circuit.
Protests against Israel-Premier Tech’s presence at races are nothing new, however they reached a whole new level during the Vuelta a España, with numerous crashes caused by protesters running into the road.
Earlier in the three weeks, riders had expressed fears for their safety and Israel-Premier Tech faced pressure from some in the race to withdraw to bring an end to the protests, particularly after clashes between protesters and police in Bilbao.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support for the team, praising riders and staff for “not giving in to hate and intimidation, while team boss Sylvan Adams said they would “not surrender to terrorists” and will “never ride without the name Israel”, a stance the team has now softened on.
While Israel-Premier Tech is not officially state-owned, instead funded Canadian-Israeli billionaire Adams, it has received some funding from Israel’s ministry for tourism and Adams – who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, encouraged US attacks on Iran in June, and called on Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza – has described the team as “ambassadors” for Israel and a means of promoting a “more realistic vision” of modern Israel.
Following the Vuelta, Premier Tech and bike sponsor Factor urged the team to drop mention of Israel from their name and to stop racing as an Israeli-registered team.
Factor CEO and founder Rob Gitelis said: “It’s not a matter of right or wrong any more. It’s become too controversial around our brand, and my responsibility is to my employees and my shareholders, to give them maximum space with which to grow this company and make it profitable. Adding additional level of conflict or complexity, we just can’t accept that any more.
“It’s no longer a personal thing of I support this or I support that. There’s just a certain level of controversy we just can’t have surrounding the brand.”
36 thoughts on ““It has become untenable for us to continue”: Israel-Premier Tech’s title sponsor steps down”
Marvellous!
Marvellous!
Their loss. Giving into
Their loss. Giving into I5lamic terr0ri5t5 and their useful-idiot supporters. H@m@ss are really good at missinformation, thats the only w@r they are winning. I wish we’d see protests against what they are doing to their own people since the ceasefire. So sad. Why always blame I5re@l? #PEACE-NOT-W@R
Why are you using that stupid
Why are you using that stupid number/symbol letter replacement as if road.cc have a filter that would block you for expressing an opinion? They don’t, and they allow all opinions unless they’re grossly offensive so stop trying to look as if your post would be in danger of being suppressed if you didn’t cunningly disguise it.
It’s not their fault – their
It’s not their fault – their keyboard is broken. It’s started spontaneously spewing out meaningless garbage.
‘Peace not war’
‘Peace not war’
Is that meant to be fucking ironic? ?
“where they make a desert,
“where they make a desert, they call it peace”?
Of course here both sides claim the desert, and unlike in Tacitus both sides claim that the other is the evil empire…
Perhaps you think it’s all
Perhaps you think it’s all been down hill since the Hasmoneans?
Hardly surprising
Hardly surprising
I wonder if this is the
I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for this team.
It would be a shame.
cdamian wrote:
Depends what you mean by “this team”. Somebody is simply going to buy their UCI license, probably along with some management and riders. Who knows, maybe even the company behind the team will technically remain the same, just under new owners (and obviously, a new team “public” name/identification).
It has happened dozens of times before, it’s nothing new really.
Good. Now we can protest UAE
Good. Now we can protest UAE who are backing the RSF in Sudan.
Good news. Boycott Israel.
Good news. Boycott Israel.
Rome73 wrote:
Boycott UAE who are involved in genocide. Right now.
ErnieC wrote:
UAE are not wholesome, agreed. They’re more like the USA than Israel though, as they’re backing people engaged in genocide – the RSF in Sudan – though not quite directly engaged in that genocide themselves.
So boycott UAE, then we also should boycott the USA and UK too. If we stick to the countries at the pointy end of dropping the actual bombs, murdering the actual women and children, poisoning and concreting over the wells, uprooting the olive trees, then we can just boycott the colonial-terrorist thieving entity of Israel.
Paul J wrote:
Is there a US or UK state backed cycling team right now? If so, boycott them as well but I do find the narrow focus on IPT quite baised. So backing is good as long as they are not pulling the trigger which to be fair, would be harder to do if UAE did not provide the weaponry.
What’s the demand on Israel?
What’s the demand on Israel?
It seems more important to strike a pose of bashing Israel than issue actual policy demands.
Strange.
OK, here is a demand: stop
OK, here is a demand: stop murdering civilians, stop shooting people for walking too fast, walking too slowly, hanging out the washing…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/10/israeli-soldiers-breaking-ranks-gaza-civilians-human-shields
Just to be clear, all states
Just to be clear, all states should be hamstrung from fighting wars where civilians may die? Or only Israel?
This means Israel should just lie down and let Hamas attack it until Israel is destroyed. Would you want that if you were Israeli?
We both know you are twisting the word ‘murder’ to mean any and all civilians deaths.
So, back to the policy demand…
It’s not just participation
It’s not just participation in a war. It’s systemic, state-santcioned genocide – and that makes hell of a difference.
We both know that isn’t true,
We both know that isn’t true, and the word ‘systemic’ is nothing but a rhetorical device.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
When the United Nations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Medecins sans Frontieres and many other humanitarian NGOs including Israeli ones like B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and numerous national governments, agree that what has happened in Gaza is genocide I’m afraid just saying “We both know that isn’t true” isn’t much of an argument.
The Palestinians are an
The Palestinians are an industry to those organisations. The academic left hate Israel.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Including those within Israel? It seems you’re going down the “no true Israeli” / “insulting Turkishness” path there.
(For the avoidance of doubt – there is indeed a strong strain of criticism of Israel on the left, which of course some will say is entirely due to antisemitism, others due a careful examination of systematic discrimination by Israel…)
Nighttrain123 wrote:
No, I am using it to mean deliberate murder, not collateral damage, not accidental deaths, not “justified” attacks on buildings allegedly containing terrorists but the targeted killing in cold blood of civilians doing nothing but going about their daily business, as attested by soldiers of the IDF in the report to which I linked.
If you want to see a real
If you want to see a real genocide, look at what happened in Sudan, where the RSF murdered more people in a week than in two years of war in Gaza. This means one of two things; either there wasn’t an organised, deliberate genocide in Gaza (not that some IDF soldiers didn’t do unaacceptable things), or that the IDF are the wors genocide committers in world history.
theJewishcyclist wrote:
Ahhh, good old whataboutism.
If I were to kill your child today, would you shrug it off and defend me by saying somebody killed two children yesterday?
theJewishcyclist wrote:
If you think really hard you might see that there is actually a third option, which is that a genocide has occurred in both Sudan and Gaza. Yes many more people have been killed in Sudan than have been killed in Gaza; genocide is defined by the motivations, intentions and actions of the perpetrators, not by the number of dead.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Agreed, however from a cyling POV – no one is protesting UAE or calling for them to stop racing. Is supplying the arms more acceptable then than actually using them?
ErnieC wrote:
I imagine it was a question directed at me as well. If that’s the case – yes, I do protest them and always have. Just like I did Bahrain-Victorious or the football World Cup in Qatar for these countries’ disrespect of human rights in general.
tomlew wrote:
I imagine it was a question directed at me as well. If that’s the case – yes, I do protest them and always have. Just like I did Bahrain-Victorious or the football World Cup in Qatar for these countries’ disrespect of human rights in general. — ErnieC
We need more people to do that but I doubt we will ever see the same level of organised and coordinated protests and attacks againt UAE, Bahrain Victorius and Jayco Alula like we did at the TdF and the Vuelta or even here at Road.cc.
tomlew wrote:
I imagine it was a question directed at me as well. If that’s the case – yes, I do protest them and always have. Just like I did Bahrain-Victorious or the football World Cup in Qatar for these countries’ disrespect of human rights in general. — ErnieC
We need more people to do that but I doubt we will ever see the same level of organised and coordinated protests and attacks againt UAE, Bahrain Victorius and Jayco Alula like we did at the TdF and the Vuelta or even here at Road.cc.
If you’re looking for a
If you’re looking for a ‘clean’ war you won’t find it. Even in ‘just’ wars, some soldiers will commit atrocities. They questions is whether there is a policy of extermination, which there obviously isn’t. Many civilians deaths doesn’t make a genocide or we’d have been guilty of genocide against Germany in ww2. Incidentally, this nonsense was often asserted by neo Nazi holocaust deniers.
And the people attacked them.
And the people attacked them.
Sorry, I meant, and the
Sorry, I meant, and the people who attacked them.
Quite right – the UCI should
Quite right – the UCI should throw the *check notes* Hamas Cycling Team out of the peloton (is this right?)
Don’t forget boycotting their
Don’t forget boycotting their massive fishing industry / olive farming – oh, apparently that’s not a thing for some reason?
(+1 for challenging eg. UAE etc also though)