Pro- Palestine Protestors Disrupting La Vuelta

Folks want to keep politics out of bike racing so bad, but that’s simply not reality. With a sport funded by whoever has the most money to give, teams and riders inevitably end up promoting political agendas whether they care about them or not.

There are sponsors that are seemingly benign like supermarkets and cycling related tech and gear. But there are also oil conglomerates, chemical companies, financial institutions, and countries among others. Apparently, the line is OnlyFans, which I find hilarious, because how dare cycling attempt to take a moral high ground when it comes to sex work.

The UCI cited the following rule to justify the ban:

Without prejudice of the applicable law, no brand of tobacco, spirits, pornographic products or any other products that might damage the image of the UCI or the sport of cycling in general shall be associated directly or indirectly with a license–holder, a UCI team or a national or international cycling competition.

Okay, fine. OnlyFans is known for it’s pornographic products for sure, but I would love to understand how genocide does not damage the image of the UCI or the sport of cycling.

The point Ayesha, get to it. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, by now you’ve heard about the genocide in Gaza. I’m calling a spade a spade. It’s genocide, people are being murdered, and it’s atrocious. Regardless of whatever backstory, backflips, and justification you come up with to sleep at night, the people are being murdered.

How does this relate to cycling? Pro cycling team Israel Premier Tech is sponsored by, you guessed it, Israel. And again, regardless of the reasons behind it, according to the world’s leading genocide scholars, Israel is currently committing genocide in Gaza.

This appears to be quite damaging to the image of the UCI and the sport of cycling… to me. Not to mention, it has begun to fully interrupt the flow of the sport by causing danger in the races.

Folks are quick to declare that protestors should find a better way to get their message across, but judging from the conversations that are FINALLY being had within the sport, I think they’re doing a pretty good job actually.

Protests need to be disruptive, and it’s not on the protestors to protect the peloton, that’s on the race organizers and the UCI. Riders are requesting that Israel Premier Tech be removed from the race, because currently, the men’s peloton is on day 12 of the 21-day La Vuelta Espana grand tour, and there have been a few near misses and one actual crash due to the protests:

Yesterday at stage 11 they had to shorten the course by 3km to insure the safety of the riders. This meant there was no winner on the day. Imagine having to race over 150km, being so close to maybe winning, and them being like… “we can’t control this situation too bad, so sad”. I’d personally be mad enough to tell the organizers to get them folks out of there so it doesn’t happen again. Also, it is SUPER dangerous.

Between this and the trans bans, the one message I keep hearing over and over again is that community is the only thing that will save us.

Y’all know I love bike racing, but I know it’s not more important than stopping a whole ass genocide. And don’t dare come around here calling me anti-semitic. Cuz this ain’t that.

In summary. My main points today are. Genocide is bad and cycling is political, whether we’re ready to accept it or not. Those folks will keep dying in silence if the world allows it to happen.

Ayesha McGowan1 Comment