A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #29-25 - Sports and Boycotts. The Case of the Israeli Cycling Team (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The statutes of sports organizations, both international (IOC, 
International Olympic Committee, FIFA, football, UCI, cycling, etc.) and 
national, all speak of the "apolitical" nature of their actions in order 
to protect their conduct from political exploitation. In reality, this 
is a completely baseless rhetorical fiction. On the other hand, the 
father of the "Olympic spirit," the Frenchman de Coubertain, combined 
his discourses on internationalism and the peaceful nature of sports 
competitions with those that saw sport as a regenerator of the French 
"race." Few remember that in 1920, the inventor of the modern Olympics 
declared in an interview that: "The modern athlete exalts his homeland, 
his race, his flag."

Sport and politics are therefore intertwined, and it could not be otherwise.

History is full of regimes that have exploited sporting events for their 
own interests. It began in 1934, when Mussolini portrayed Italy's 
victory in the World Cup as a personal success, and continued in grand 
style with the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin. But it has never stopped, 
naturally with varying degrees of intensity, but always with the goal of 
using sport for propaganda purposes. Today, major sporting events the 
Olympics and World Cups, especially but not exclusively are often 
entrusted to nations and regimes that purchase them (because that's what 
they are) from the IOC and FIFA to launch their tourism projects or to 
"clean up" their international image, tarnished by wars or a "casual" 
treatment of civil rights. But this applies to all sports: in 2025, for 
example, the Cycling World Championships were held in Africa for the 
first time, organized by the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame, 
authoritarian at home and heavily involved in the civil war raging in 
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Naturally, boycotts of major sporting events have been rampant from the 
very beginning. This is a two-faced phenomenon. On the one hand, there 
are "diplomatic boycotts," those initiated by states to harm others. A 
typical example is the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, decided by 
the United States and 54 of its allies to "protest" the Soviet invasion 
of Afghanistan. This was followed by retaliation at the 1984 Los Angeles 
Games, in which the USSR and 14 of its allies did not participate. 
However, there have also been "social boycotts," those initiated to harm 
dictatorial and racist regimes. The first example was the unsuccessful 
boycott of the 1936 Berlin Games, followed by the campaign against 
apartheid South Africa, which culminated in the boycott of 22 African 
countries at the 1976 Montreal Olympics in protest at New Zealand's 
participation in rugby, a non-Olympic sport.

A side note: the campaign against South Africa had a wide resonance in 
Italy, so much so that in the early 1970s, the anti-racism movement 
managed to prevent the South African national rugby team from touring Italy.

Usually, the sports world, made up of managers and athletes who live by 
sport, responds to boycott campaigns with the ritual "I'd like to, but I 
can't."

But fortunately, there are exceptions.

The case of the "Israel Premier Tech" cycling team is symptomatic and 
deserves further investigation.

Founded in 2015 by Canadian magnate Sylvan Adams, who also holds an 
Israeli passport, the team has grown over the years thanks to the 
recruitment of increasingly strong riders. It is currently among the top 
20 teams in the UCI rankings.

Adams has repeatedly boasted in the past of being a close friend of war 
criminal Netanyahu, and while it's not proven that the state of Israel 
directly financed the team, it's always seemed clear that the "Israel" 
name was a way to project a clean and attractive image of the Israeli 
regime. These actions have now been dubbed "sportswashing."

The presence of the Israeli team sparked several protests in 2025 during 
the Giro d'Italia (many stage finishes were draped with Palestinian 
flags) and the Tour de France. However, at the Vuelta España, the third 
major stage race, the protests by the "propal" demonstrators reached 
their peak.

Cycling is not easily controlled because it's raced among people, not in 
enclosed spaces like stadiums, arenas, or gyms. The stupidity of the 
Vuelta organizers, who instead of engaging in dialogue with the 
protesters chose the approach of closure and confrontation, ended up 
causing accidents (sometimes even risking cyclists falling) until the 
final stage in Madrid was suspended.

The "propal" protests and the risk that the demonstrations organized 
along the route of the Giro dell'Emilia, held on October 4, could 
involve the riders, pushed the organizers not to invite the "Israel" 
team. The team voluntarily withdrew from participating in the other 
races scheduled in Italy for October.

Meanwhile, however, something new had happened: one of the strongest and 
best-known "Israel" riders, Canadian Derek Gee, fourth in the Giro 
d'Italia, had announced that he had terminated his contract with Adams' 
team for "just cause": "ethical reasons" prevented him from continuing 
to ride with the team. Previously, another well-known "Israel" rider, 
Danish Fulgsang, had declared that he was retiring from cycling and that 
he finally no longer felt the burden of his team's name. Fulgsang would 
have retired from cycling anyway, but his statements were not trivial.

On October 6, "Israel" made a sensational announcement: starting in 
2026, the team would change ownership (Adams will dedicate himself to 
the World Jewish Congress) and name, joining another country but 
retaining Canadian Premier Tech as a sponsor.

Cycling thus effectively eliminates Israel from its races. The 
"sportswashing" so dear to Netanyahu and his accomplices has failed!

This is the most tangible result of the campaign to boycott Israel. Not 
a finish line, but an important milestone, one that hopefully other 
sports will follow suit.

Numa

https://umanitanova.org/sport-e-boicottaggi-il-caso-della-squadra-ciclistica-di-israele/
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