Lidl-Trek’s latest signing Derek Gee-West has confirmed that his €30 million legal dispute with NSN Cycling, formerly known as Israel-Premier Tech, has been resolved, after claiming in the Spanish press that he feared “retirement was a real possibility” during the protracted saga.
However, the Canadian stage racer has since claimed that there were a “whole bunch of reasons” behind his acrimonious departure from the scandal-laden squad, insisting that the dispute is “best left in the past” as he aims to return to racing, and target a top result at the Giro d’Italia, with new team Lidl-Trek.
Gee-West, who finished fourth overall at last year’s Giro, hasn’t raced since the Canadian national championships last June, after he issued a “notice of termination” to Israel-Premier Tech in August, despite the 28-year-old having signed a five-year extension in 2023 tying him to the squad until the end of 2028.
Gee-West later responded by confirming that he had unilaterally terminated his contract and claiming that “certain issues” had made his “continuation at the team untenable”.
And in October he expanded on his reasons for attempting to rip up his contract early, citing an “irreparable relationship” with the team and “serious concerns” about continuing racing in the squad’s colours, from both a safety and “personal-belief standpoint that weighed heavily on my conscience”.
The Canadian stage racer also claimed that he was facing a €30 million damages claim from Israel-Premier Tech for, in his words, “doing nothing more than exercising my fundamental rights as a professional and a person”, the case prompting Gee-West to call on the UCI’s Arbitration Board to intervene.
Derek Gee, stage 11, 2024 Tour de France (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
A month later, Israel-Premier Tech, founded by Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, announced that it was rebranding as NSN Cycling and will race the 2026 campaign under a Swiss licence and with a Spanish identity, backed by international sports and entertainment company Never Say Never (NSN) and global investment platform Stoneweg.
This rebranding exercise proved the culmination of months of turbulence for the formerly Israeli-registered squad, which saw them come under mounting pressure from race organisers, riders, and sponsors (with both title sponsor Premier Tech and bike brand Factor stepping away from the team), as the protests against the squad’s ongoing involvement in cycling’s biggest races, amid the war in Gaza, escalated.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty surrounding Gee-West’s own future within the sport lingered on throughout the winter, with the Ineos Grenadiers reported to among the Canadian’s suitors, until it was confirmed in early January that he had signed a three-year deal with Lidl-Trek.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais on Tuesday, Gee-West admitted that the legal wrangling with Israel-Premier Tech had left him fearing for his career, while explaining why he didn’t explicitly link his departure from the team to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“I’ve experienced some truly dark days, with moments when I thought that, unfortunately, retirement was a very real possibility, especially given the enormous sum of money involved,” he said.
“In the end, I didn’t want to use what was happening in the Gaza Strip as a scapegoat to get out of my contract. I didn’t think it was fair.”
Derek Gee and Alex Baudin, stage 19, 2023 Giro d’Italia (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
However, speaking to reporters during an online press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Gee-West played down the potential impact of the dispute on his career – though he did confirm that the case has now been resolved by the UCI.
“That’s all settled and done, there are no remnants from that left over,” he said, before doing his best to avoid expanding on his motivations for leaving Israel-Premier Tech.
“There are a whole bunch of reasons, but to be honest, I just want to leave that in the past, and it’s not something that I want to get into,” he continued. “Out of respect for all the parties involved, it’s best left in the past for now.”
Asked by Domestique’s Barry Ryan about whether he worried that he would end up missing this season if the legal dispute dragged on, Gee-West said: “I never thought that I’d have to sit out the whole year. I definitely thought that at some points… I wasn’t confident that it was going to be resolved by the end of the season, but I’m eternally grateful that it was, especially with the timing of it.
“I felt like I didn’t miss anything on the build-up to 2026. So to be honest, it was a lot of uncertainty, but I think that the timing was great.”
“It’s interesting, and obviously it was very, very tough, incredibly, but it’s also the kind of thing that, because it’s your everyday, it’s all-consuming and then as soon as you arrive at team camp and you’re on a new team, it really leaves you pretty quickly,” he told Daniel Benson when asked about the uncertainty he faced over the past five months.
“I’m not going to exaggerate and say it was fine. It was a very, very tough period, but it’s not something that’s stuck with me, and it’s not something that’s lingered. I’m fresh, remotivated, and ready to get back into the peloton.”
Derek Gee, stage 20, 2025 Giro d’Italia (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
Gee-West began his professional career with UCI ProTeam Israel-Premier Tech in 2023, stepping up from its Israel Cycling Academy development squad at the age of 25, after focusing the bulk of his early career on the track.
After a breakthrough ride at the 2023 Giro d’Italia, where he finished second on four stages, he soon established himself as one of the team’s most successful riders.
He won a stage at the 2024 Critérium du Dauphiné before finishing ninth at his debut Tour de France later that summer. In 2025, he won a stage and the overall at O Gran Camiño in Spain and finished fourth overall at the Giro, his best grand tour GC performance to date, with his last race coming in June at the Canadian national road race championships, which he won.
The 28-year-old is set to lead his new squad Lidl-Trek at this year’s Giro, where he hopes to continue his meteoric, if slightly belated and disrupted, rise through the ranks by targeting a podium place in Rome.