{"id":335231,"date":"2025-12-09T20:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335231\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T20:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:07:10","slug":"iniesta-leads-nsn-cycling-relaunch-following-israel-pt-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335231\/","title":{"rendered":"Iniesta leads NSN Cycling relaunch following Israel PT era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Spain and Barcelona football star Andres Iniesta celebrated a “new chapter” for his NSN Cycling team, formerly Israel-Premier Tech (IPT)<\/a>, at its presentation on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Iniesta is a co-founder of sports and entertainment agency NSN, which partnered with Swiss global investment platform Stoneweg, took over the team in November.<\/p>\n

IPT’s presence at the Vuelta a Espana this year was heavily protested by pro-Palestinian supporters<\/a>, with several stages of the race heavily disrupted.<\/p>\n

The team will race under a Swiss licence this season with a “Spanish structure” and signed Eritrean star Biniam Girmay this month to lead their roster.<\/p>\n

“Above all I want to enjoy this new chapter, getting inside cycling much more,” Iniesta told reporters at the launch in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

“I think if cycling shows us something, it’s this great work in a team, that I think is the most important thing, and that will make us all feel proud.”<\/p>\n

Iniesta, who scored in the 2010 World Cup final to win the competition with Spain, said he used to watch cycling races with his grandfather and has a “very strong link” with the sport.<\/p>\n

“(We’re) very excited, motivated, looking forward to working hard, improving and on this path, which is starting now, enjoying it and doing good things so that people can enjoy them.”<\/p>\n

With a slogan of “redesigning the ride”, NSN Cycling appears to be a clean break from the team’s prior incarnation, although a contract dispute with Derek Gee rumbles on.<\/p>\n

The Canadian cyclist ended his deal with IPT before the Vuelta a Espana because of “personal beliefs”, amid Israel’s offensive in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gee said in October he was facing a damages claim of 30 million euros ($35 million) from IPT.<\/p>\n

NSN Cycling’s general manager Kjell Carlstrom said despite the team’s revamp, Gee’s contract was still being wrangled over.<\/p>\n

“That is still something that is pending so I can’t talk about it that much,” said Carlstrom.<\/p>\n

IPT was owned by Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, who described himself as an unofficial ambassador for Israel.<\/p>\n

Former Finnish cyclist Carlstrom hailed the arrival of Girmay, who in 2024 became the first black African to win the Tour de France’s green jersey.<\/p>\n

“It’s great to have such an impressive rider in the roster, as a leader, and I think he fits very well in our culture,” said Carlstrom.<\/p>\n

Girmay signed until 2028 from Belgium’s Intermarche-Wanty team.<\/p>\n

“I’m here to win a bike race, I think this is the team to help me improve,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think the best team I can find is NSN Cycling team, so I’m really looking forward to the new season.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Spain and Barcelona football star Andres Iniesta celebrated a “new chapter” for his NSN Cycling team, formerly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,1258,123705,7413,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-335231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-pro-palestinian-protests","13":"tag-spain","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}