The attempts to occupy the road on the Gran Vía force to stop the race three kilometers from the finish line and leave the stage … Without winnerbilbao. The return had become a pressure cooker that exploded in Bilbao. In a territory so strongly linked to cycling and the history of the Tour of Spain the Ronda lived yesterday one of its most black episodes of the last decades. He punctured the race, with an unprecedented stage ending in the worst possible sense, and also punctured the image of Bizkaia and its capital as venues of great events, as a quiet and solvent place where to organize appointments with guarantees. Until now this strategy of attracting acts of Drumbrón had always gone well: in May with the Europa League, two years ago with the tour, before with the rugby, the basketball World Cup … until now.
The protests over the tens of thousands of dead in Gaza, which have already been a constant presence in the cycling test almost since it began on August 23 in Turin for the presence of the Israel Premier Tech team, reached their peak yesterday in the Gran Vía shortly before the eleventh stage ended, right in the finish line. In which it should be the goal and boiling point, as had happened other years to the passage of cyclists. But the euphoria was replaced this time by the violent protests of a few who threw the party and the desire of the rest for enjoying the day. The balance at the end of the afternoon was not sports but police: there were three detainees, five identified and four Ertzainas injured.
Such was the pressure of the protesters trying to invade the road, such as the amount of flags and so heated were the spirits when the squad first passed through the Gran Vía that there was no second. The circular route was cut dry as soon as the invasion attempt that the security forces and some members of the organization struggled as they could. There were Dantesque scenes, more typical of other times in Euskadi, so the plan was chosen.
The race was terminated three kilometers before the end and without winner. Pidcock and Vingegaard advanced ten seconds apart from the rest of the favorites after breaking the race in Pike when they were neutralized by the organization in La Salve. The times stopped timing at that point, although Pidcock wanted to reach the goal symbolically. He did it with several rows of Ertzainas to the sides. “Putting us in danger will not help your cause, but I don’t want to say anything political because I will get into trouble,” he said when getting out of the bike.
From the early morning it was felt that the atmosphere was tense. The mayor of Bilbao, Juan Mari Aburto, said a few hours before the exit of the evidence that the protests in defense of the Palestinian people were “absolutely understandable given the situation of authentic atrocity that is being lived in Gaza for that genocide that is causing the state of Israel.” However, in what now seems a prediction, he called that this protest be “peaceful”, because any “uncivic” act would mean “a bad image of Bilbao.”
Europa Press
Strong police presence
Throughout the day the Palestinian flags waved along the roads of Bizkaia and the streets of Bilbao against the team sponsored by the Israeli government, which already before the exit, in the esplanade of San Mamés, was guarded at all times by the Ertzaintza. This was a little appreciated presence by much of the platoon. In fact, several cyclists opted to invite the Hebrew team to leave the race to avoid major evils. Worried security. On the previous day, Simone Petilli suffered a fall from a protest in Navarra and everything made him anticipate that in Bilbao the most quieter atmosphere was going to be.
Although the rest of the teams and the cyclists themselves would prefer to run without further pressure than sports, it is not easy to show the door to Israel. It is not a guest team, as they are for example the Caja Rural or the Burgos, but it is a World Tour squad, the elite, which can participate in the big laps with all of the law. With that present the International Cycling Union issued yesterday a statement in which he claimed the “political neutrality” and refused to apply “punishment tools.” Of course, he claimed that the squad can circulate “in optimal safety conditions.” That did not prevent, after what happened yesterday, Kiko García, technical director of the Vuelta, did want “that Israel’s own team realizes that being here does not facilitate the safety of all others.”
Because you have to keep in mind that there are ten stages ahead. And these types of events can have a contagion, multiplier effect, there is a risk of imitation. Moreover, in such a bleeding issue as Gaza’s genocide, to which a large majority of the Basque, Spanish and Western population is highly sensitive and does not understand how Israel does not extend the veto that Russia has suffered since the invasion of Ukraine. “Bicot Israel, Palestine Askatu!” It was a constant motto throughout the test.
The first outstanding incident came almost at the exit, in the Alto de Enekuri, shortly before the two less fourth. A group of people occupied the road with a banner where ‘Destroy Israel’ could be read and with Palestinian flags. The break lasted for about five minutes and forced several senior positions from the return of the cars and chat with the protesters. Then there were problems in Morga, where several strangers crossed straw bundles on the road that had to remove the Ertzaintza mobile brigade before the squad passed. Alto de El Vivero also crossed a banner that some cyclists had to dodge.
Music out
But with big difference the culminating event in terms of tension was in the Gran Vía. Already in the first step of the platoon by goal there were moments of risk with the crowd trying to knock down the metal fences while police officers and personnel of the organization tried to keep them in their place in a rather unequal confrontation. With cyclists going to high speeds around the place, any problem could end in tragedy.
Another scream
There we had to make a decision. In the finish line, cycling fans were a minority and the protesters had assumed all the prominence. But, above all, the state of tension in which it had been discouraged, in the opinion of the organization, end there the stage for security reasons. And neither did it seem good idea to develop the usual ceremony that would surely be overshadowed by the slogans. So three kilometers from the goal the music was removed and the race was finished without winner, without the delivery of flowers or jerseys and with nothing.
This endless end was a large disappointment for all cycling fans who had approached Bilbao. Many of them were at the same time very sensitive to the massacres that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. That is why there were also moments of tension between fans and protesters, persuaded that sport and politics must run through parallel roads, and others convinced that any protest is little to raise their voice against the tens of thousands of deaths that the Palestinian people are suffering.
