The owner and patron of the Israel-Prime Tech cycling team, Sylvan Adams, is a close friend of Benyamin Netanyahu and considers runners as “ambassadors of the country of Israel”.
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“Happy and relieved“. This is how Italian Alessandro de Marchi describes, now a runner of the Jayco Alula team, after wearing the Israel-Prime Tech jersey in 2021 and 2022, in an interview given to The Observer in July. The triple stage winner on the Vuelta indicates that he would do things “Differently today” pour “Defend its moral principles”in the context of the war in the Gaza Strip. His former teammate, Jakob Fuglsang, neo-retired, conceded him, Monday, August 18, that he was “More pleasant to roll without the logo of Israel”, In words relayed by the Danish press.
“I will not criticize anyone who runs there, because everyone is free to decide, but for the moment, I would not sign a contract with Israel. I would not be able to manage the feelings that I feel to be involved in something like that”explains from Marchi, elected most combative runner in the Tour de France in 2014, when he was riding for the Cannondale.
“At the time, I really didn't understand much about Israel. Team officials wanted to show the beauty of the country -it was clearly team policy -, but there were never hostile feelings in Gaza or Palestinians, nor reference to the occupation of the West Bank, continues the Italian. There was lighter propaganda, let's say, which projected the image of Israel. We felt that it was a complex and divided society. But we also saw that there was no place to discuss Gaza “.
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“Me during the four years I was there, I never had the feeling of being a standard bearer or a spokesperson for Israel. I signed my contract only to cycle, Tempere Rudy Barbier, French runner who has evolved within the Israeli team between 2019 and 2022, contacted by Franceinfo: Sport. Does the country have visited for a week every year every year is the thing? Perhaps, but I see it more as a possibility of opening up culturally, of discovering a country. We had the choice to go to the wall of lamentations or not, and there has never been any communication obligation to take photos in front of this or that monument. Since then, the situation has evolved, it is more delicate, and I can understand that the last years have been tough to live “.
The French runner remembers reinforced security in certain races, notably in Qatar. “Israel has been a country at war for decades and we had its name on the jersey and the wardrobe, but I always felt safe because the team was doing things correctlyhe explains. On the other hand, all the runners of the team will be able to tell you that they have received, at one time, hostile messages in their mailbox or on social networks “. A heavy situation that could explain the relief of Jakob Fuglsang, winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2019 and the Tour de Lombardie in 2020, to no longer carry the Israeli team logo on a bicycle.
On the Tour de France 2025, this logo had also been modified, by removing the name of the country, and by keeping only the star and the first tech sponsor, both on team vehicles and the equipment of runners. Officers of the police, assault rifles in hand, also stood guard around the bus of the Israeli training, and members of other teams conceded preferred not to share the same hotel.
In Toulouse, a pro-Palestinian demonstrator had burst into the finish line of the 11th stage to request the withdrawal of the peloton team. Alessandro de Marchi calls the International Cycling Union (UCI) to “Take concrete measures to position the world of cycling in the right direction and show your conscience of what is happening in Gaza”.
