A tightly managed public debut showed the team is eager to move on from its past, and the media seems happy to let them.
NSN co-founders Andrés Iniesta, left, and Joel Borras shake hands with Jake Stewart and Pau Martí.
courtesy NSN
On December 9, around 100 people gathered for official presentation of the NSN Cycling team. The venue, in Barcelona’s old town, sat just a few hundred metres from the plush marina, where the team’s former owner Sylvan Adams could easily afford at least half a dozen of the berthed superyachts.
Adams wasn’t present, but he loomed over the events nonetheless. The day’s mission from the team’s perspective? To draw a line in the sand and separate NSN from its past identity as Israel-Premier Tech. The media’s mission? To seek clarification about the new identity, its funding, and management. Those questions matter because the answers speak volumes about whether the team’s new identity represents a true fresh start, or simply a shell to cover over past controversy.
NSN – standing for Never Say Never – has acquired a Swiss racing licence, but the message those behind the venture were enthusiastic to project is that this is now unequivocally a Catalan team.
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In a 34-minute press conference that began 10 minutes behind schedule – on brand with keeping it very Spanish – and with a ‘bon dia’ (Catalan for good morning), the word “Israel” was not uttered once, but “Barcelona” received 20 mentions: once every 102 seconds. So undisguised was the Catalan charm offensive that Escape Collective half-expected Carles Puigdemont, the exiled former Catalan leader, to waltz in, declaring himself as the proud owner of the team.
Everywhere you turned in the event hall there were Spanish and Catalan references. From the trocitos of jamón and cheese being served, to Spain’s World Cup-winning scorer and co-founder of NSN, Andrés Iniesta, speaking about his apparent enthusiasm for the sport (“cycling formed part of my childhood,” he said), everyone present – almost all Spanish – were reminded that Israel is out, and Spain and Catalonia are in.
There was a good reason for this. The Tour de France starts in Barcelona in 2026, and only a few months ago, the city’s mayor was suggesting that they would withdraw their hosting of the race if IPT were present. That same mayor, Jaume Collboni, spoke for almost 10 minutes at the team’s launch in Catalan. Here was definitive confirmation that Barcelona’s politicians are happy with the change.
Are we to buy into the rebrand? How Catalan – or Spanish – is the team in reality? There’s no denying that NSN is a Catalan company, and Iniesta, though from the Castilla-La Mancha region, is a Barcelona legend; only three footballers have played more games for Barça. Of the 28 actual cyclists on the team’s confirmed roster for 2026, only one – the Valencian Pau Martí – is from Spain. In keeping with modern WorldTour trends, the team is a multinational melting pot, with riders from 14 countries, most strongly represented by Britain (five), Australia (four), and Israel (three).
But, hey, Bahrain Victorious wants you to believe it’s a Bahrain team, despite having no Bahrainis. Ditto UAE Team Emirates-XRG, which hasn’t had an Emirati rider since Yousif Mirza in 2022 (several UAE Gen Z development team riders have ridden as stagiaires for the team, but Mirza was the last full-time Emirati rider on the WorldTeam). So we shouldn’t read too much into that, and you’d wager a few bob on the team signing more Spaniards in the coming years. What is undeniably Catalan is that the team’s base will be in Girona. Much of the team staff from the IPT days remains; an important and positive point for a sport where teams folding entirely isn’t uncommon.
“What didn’t we learn?” Answer: quite a lot. So many questions remain unanswered, partly due to a tightly managed press conference and message discipline from the team, but also because of a lack of inquisitiveness from the assembled media.
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