Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted the Vuelta a España again on Tuesday as Colombian Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) won stage 16, which ended 8km before the scheduled finish at Castro de Herville.
Jonas Vingegaard retained the overall lead despite a late puncture. Aussie Jai Hindley remains in fourth place after finishing in the main group of leaders, 6 minutes down on the stage winner.
The race directors announced on Radio Vuelta that due to a “big protest at 3 kilometres before the [finish] line”, the stage winner would be decided early.
The race had entered the final 15km at the time of the announcement, with Bernal and Spain’s Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) out in front, and the Colombian won the sprint to the new finish line, with Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ) coming in third.
Egan Bernal won the truncated stage. (Getty Images: Tim de Waele)
A large group of protesters, waving Palestinian flags, had completely blocked the road on the ascent to the line. The finish was moved to the foot of the climb, on the 167.9 km ride from Poio to Mos.Castro de Herville.
“It’s a victory and after the drop from the GC, I really wanted a win,” Bernal said.
“In the end, with Landa the cooperation was super good and when we knew that the final would be with 8 kilometres left, we were like, ‘OK, so we just sprint.'”
The peloton had been content to allow the riders up ahead to stay away, but on the penultimate climb, the main bunch began to split, with the general classification contenders forming their own group.
“It’s a shame that this has happened again,” Vingegaard said.
“Everyone has the right to protest, but it’s unfortunate that it had to happen here and in this way, preventing us from finishing the race.”
Previously, there was no winner on stage 11, after organisers ordered the race to finish 3km from the line due to pro-Palestinian protesters causing disruption at the finish in Bilbao.
Team Israel-Premier Tech have been targeted throughout the Vuelta. (Getty Images: Tim de Waele)
Protesters are railing against the continued participation in the race by the Israel-Premier Tech team.
The team is privately owned with no official connection to the state, however, its co-owner, Sylvan Adams, has called himself a “self-appointed ambassador-at-large for Israel”.
There were incidents on stage 10 that caused a rider to crash and also during stage five’s team time trial, when the Israel-Premier Tech team were stopped on the road by a group of protesters holding Palestinian flags.
Israel-Premier Tech removed its name from riders’ jerseys on Saturday, but the protests have continued, with Javier Romo (Movistar) suffering a crash on Sunday’s stage 15.
The Spanish rider was not at the start of Tuesday’s stage, abandoning the race due to injuries picked up in the crash after a man with a Palestinian flag tried to run up to the riders and a policeman ran across the road towards the spectator.
Race director Javier Guillen said the intention was still to finish the race in Madrid on Sunday as planned and called the repeated disruptions illegal.
Protesters organised themselves 3km from the scheduled finish line. (Getty Images: Europa Press/Adrian Irago)
“I’m here before you because, from La Vuelta, we want to clearly express our strongest rejection of what we experienced today,” Guillen told reporters.
“Fortunately, the stage was completed in terms of timing and the stage winner but, obviously, the stage did not end where we had planned.
“The main message I want to share with you today is that we are going to continue with La Vuelta, and tomorrow we will start the next stage.
“You cannot cut stages short, you cannot block the cyclists’ path.
“It’s illegal because it’s defined as such both in the Penal Code and in the Sports Law. We are a sport and sport is meant to unite, anything that doesn’t serve that purpose isn’t linked to sport.
“We want to defend our sport, we want to defend our race, and that’s why we want to keep working.”
There have been calls to suspend the Israel-Premier Tech team from the race, but Guillen reiterated the Vuelta’s stance that this was a decision that was out of the organisers’ hands.
“Yesterday, there was a match between Italy and Israel. A football match was played, and a European Cup in which Israel participated has taken place,” Guillen said following Monday’s soccer World Cup qualifier played in Hungary.
“The participation of these teams is not prohibited because no international federation has done so, none. And there hasn’t been any international body that has imposed sanctions requiring us, the world of sport, to act accordingly.
“From now on, what we want is for the race to continue because all the teams participating in La Vuelta have legitimacy.”
Guillen said the Vuelta is deploying every possible resource when it comes to security, but it is impossible to cover every area in a race of this size. The director was asked if a Plan B was in place for Sunday’s final stage.
“No Plan B for reaching Madrid, no replacing the Madrid stage, absolutely not,” Guillen replied.
The Gaza war began after Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has levelled entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, displaced most of the population of 2.3 million and pushed the enclave to the brink of famine, according to the United Nations, killing over 63,000 Palestinians.
Reuters