Events, change in the course, falls … The presence of the Israel Premier Tech team on the Vuelta electrifies the 2025 edition

The 80th edition of the Tour of Spain cycling is marked by unprecedented disturbances in the event. Protesters denote the presence of an Israeli team in the peloton. The Spanish government has seized the case, while the organizers are worried about the arrival of the race in the capital.

Geopolitics therefore invited itself into sport spectacularly, against a backdrop of war in Gaza, and under pressure from demonstrators who multiply actions on Spanish roads. A mobilization of such magnitude that two days before the arrival in Madrid, the suspense is no longer so much to know that will prevail, but rather to know if the race will go well, and what will remain in the memories. The sporting issue of this 80th edition was relegated to the background by the disturbances that have punctuated the event, like no other so far in world sport. Not a day or almost without demonstrators sporting Palestinian flags, on the side of the roads or the finish line, and denouncing the presence on the race of the “Israel Premier Tech” team, whose boss, Sylvan Adams, is a close friend of Benyamin Netanyahu.

A nightmare for the organizers, obviously powerless to fully secure hundreds of kilometers from the course, and who have already had to truncate steps, or even neutralize them, as in Bilbao 10 days ago. Target protests, the Israeli team has withdrawn any reference to the Hebrew state from their jersey or buses, but there is no question of leaving the race, as suggested by certain members of the organization, in the name of “Peloton safety“.

The discomfort is general in the pelotton, with runners taken between amazement, concern and fatalism. “”People who manifest do so for a reason, because what's going on is horrible“reacted the double winner of the Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard, who wears the leader's jersey, but all the runners do not have the same leniency with demonstrators who caused falls crossing the road to the passage of the peloton.

More broadly, many wonder what they are doing there, or do not understand why their sport is targeted, like no other so far. Two days ago, the runners decided that they would all leave the race in the event of a new incident. There was none, but at the cost of a new change in the route, with a time trial planed in half, Friday, around Valladolid. The controversy will last until the arrival, scheduled for Sunday in Madrid, and which promises to be particularly eventful.

It is no coincidence that these protests take on such a magnitude in Spain: the country is in the forefront in the denunciation of Israeli policy in Gaza, with a very mobilized public opinion, and a Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, who took a whole series of sanctions this week against the Hebrew State. On Friday, the Spanish spokesman for the Spanish government who pleaded for international sport bodies to apply sanctions similar to those that have been targeting Russian athletes since the offensive in Ukraine to Israeli. The international cycling union has excluded the hypothesis so far, recalling “the fundamental importance of political neutrality in sport“…