{"id":613814,"date":"2026-09-04T03:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T03:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613814\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T03:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T03:38:09","slug":"israeli-athletes-will-not-take-part-in-derry-triathlon-after-concerns-raised-organisers-say-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613814\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli athletes will not take part in Derry triathlon after concerns raised, organisers say \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four athletes from Israel<\/a> will not take part in an international triathlon in Derry<\/a> on Saturday after concerns were raised over their participation, race organisers have said.<\/p>\n

North West Triathlon Club (NWTC) said it had made \u201cstrong representations\u201d that it could not support the participation of the Israeli athletes in the Europe Triathlon Cup.<\/p>\n

Up to 200 athletes from around the world are due to take part in the event.<\/p>\n

In a statement on social media, NWTC said it became aware of the potential participation of Israeli athletes only when the provisional entry list was published on the World Triathlon website.<\/p>\n

The organisation said it had \u201cno involvement whatsoever in accepting or approving these international entries\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cNWTC immediately made strong representations to Triathlon Ireland and Europe Triathlon and made clear in the strongest possible terms that it could not support their participation in the circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the avoidance of any doubt, athletes representing Israel will not be participating in the City of Derry Triathlon on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will not be lining up at our start line and will not be taking part in our race. There will be no Israeli representation competing at this event.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NWTC said their position was not \u201cdirected at anyone because of their religion or ethnicity\u201d, but was a position \u201cconcerning representation of the state of Israel in international sport and the attempt to present normality on the international sporting stage while Palestinians<\/a> continue to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

It added that the \u201csafety of every athlete, volunteer, spectator and member of the public has been our overriding priority throughout the organisation of the 2026 Europe Triathlon Cup\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Derry Anti War Coalition said the decision was a \u201chuge victory for common sense\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cThe Derry public can always be depended on to raise a collective voice against injustice and there is no greater injustice than the treatment of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement from the Police Service of Northern Ireland<\/a> said it \u201cbecame aware of potential protest activity in relation to the event through social media\u201d. \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four athletes from Israel will not take part in an international triathlon in Derry on Saturday after concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7726,61,60,3410,4268,21754,112,27129],"class_list":["post-613814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-derry","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland-psni","tag-sports","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}