Vuelta a España: Chaos & Mayhem Continue

Back to Spain race officials say the battered Spanish grand tour will continue despite another day filled with scenes of chaos Tuesday when race organizers cut short a stage for the second time due to incessant protests.

Despite doubts about whether the race will even make it to its finale Sunday in Madrid, race director Javier Guillén said the Vuelta will go on.

“I have to say that the Vuelta will not stop and tomorrow there will be a stage,” Guillén said Tuesday. “Our plan is to take the race all the way to Madrid.

“Everyone wants peace in Gaza, but the Vuelta is not the place to settle this debate,” Guillén said. “Stages cannot be cut off, cyclists cannot be blocked. It is illegal, as defined by in the penal code and sports law. Sport serves to unite, and anything less should be put off to one side.”

Demonstrators completely blocked the road in Tuesday’s 16th stage with about 3km to go in the hotly contested stage across Galicia, forcing organizers to improvise a new finish line at 8km to go.

Egan Bernal won his first race since his near-fatal crash in 2022, but it’s not racing that’s making the headlines right now at the Vuelta.

The Spanish grand tour is teetering on chaos with five more stages left to go.

Unprecedented in cycling history

These ongoing protests targeting the Israel-Premier Tech team and the larger war in Gaza are unprecedented in cycling history.

Stage races across the decades have often been the scene of civil disobedience from environmental activists or perhaps from local farmers or union workers, but nothing on this scale and intensity has ever hit a bike race before.

Wednesday’s stage enters the Bierzo region and is scheduled to end atop the Alto de El Morredero, one of the key GC climbs of this Vuelta. If there’s a repeat of what happened Tuesday, the final outcome of the Vuelta could be altered.

Police have ordered an additional 450 officers to patrol the route of Thursday’s time trial in Valladolid. Authorities in Madrid are preparing for even more civil disobedience during Saturday’s and Sunday’s stages.

Police say groups are organizing via social media apps to coordinate plans and select sections of the course to gather.

Trees cut down, demonstrators blocking the road

Monday’s rest day did not cool tempers, and protesters have been ratcheting up the intensity and size of the demonstrations since the Vuelta entered Spain on stage 5.

Big crowds massed at the start in Poio, and more piled onto the final climb at Castro de Herville. MARK reported that a large tree was felled and strewn across the race course, but police were able to clear the debris.

The peloton is on edge about having to race in such dangerous and unpredictable conditions.

Despite a stepped-up police presence on Tuesday, authorities patrolling the Vuelta could not stop a large group of chanting protesters from blocking the road with about 3km to go, forcing organizers’ hands for the second time in this Vuelta.

Unlike Bilbao, when the stage finale was neutralized, there was an improvised finish line and GC times taken at 8km to go. Bernal darted ahead of fellow escapee Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) to claim the win, but no one was happy with the outcome.

Riders trailed across the impromptu meta and waited for team buses to arrive to pick them up. With journalists waiting at the finish line, there was no immediate reaction to the chaos on the road.

Anecdotally, NBC film crews captured Visma’s Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson chatting with overnight leader Jonas Vingegaard, and they hadn’t realized that the Dane had punctured on the last kicker and was forced to change bikes with a teammate.

Romo first DNF due to protests

The potential dangers of the unruly protests intersecting with a high-speed bike race hit home Tuesday.

Spain’s Javier Romo of Movistar pulled out early in the stage, suffering from injuries he had sustained during Sunday’s crash. With his left arm and leg heavily bandaged, he could not continue in the Vuelta.

The Spanish rider became the first to be forced out of the Vuelta due to the actions of protesters, who are becoming more aggressive.

Romo and Quick-Step’s Max Schachmann crashed Sunday after a protester tried to charge onto the race course, with the Movistar rider taking the worst of it. Intermarché’s Simone Petilli also crashed last week when protesters charged onto the roadway, but he’s been able to continue with only light injuries.

“It could have been a bigger tragedy after crashing at 50kph,” Romo said Tuesday at the start. “I was involved and tried to warn my teammates behind me. I crossed my wheel with those in front and crashed.

“I’m not one to judge. They’ve screwed up La Vuelta for me, that’s obvious, and I don’t think I’m the one who has to pay for this.”

‘Israel, out of return!’ – Israel, out of the return!

The protests are primarily directing their anger and frustration at Israel-Premier Tech, the team owned by Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams.

The team is privately held by Adams, who champions himself as an unofficial ambassador of Israel. And though the team has received money from the Israel tourism board as a second-tier sponsor, it is not associated with or officially backed by the Israeli government.

That hasn’t stopped pro-Palestinian protest groups from targeting the team’s presence at the race, and demonstrators have turned their rage at the ongoing Gaza war against the Vuelta and the IPT racing team.

For the riders and staffers on the team, this Vuelta is turning into a nightmare.

“I’ve been working 35 years as a sports director, all my life working hard, and now that people are calling me an assassin and a son of a bitch, well, that’s not very nice,” said IPT’s Óscar Guerrero after things blew up in Bilbao last week. “The team is private; we don’t have to hide anything because we are not part of anything.”

Vuelta officials feel hopeless in the situation and only ask that protesters and demonstrators remain respectful of the rider’s health and safety, as well as their own.

“I am living through the worst moment in my 16 years as Vuelta director,” Guillén told The world. “It’s an unexpected and complicated problem with the Israel team. The UCI has already made a statement that the team has the right to participate. We cannot remove Israel-Premier Tech.”

UCI rules say that IPT, which was ranked in the top 2 of the ProTeam rankings, has a right to be in the Vuelta. Pressure from Vuelta organizers, as well as race owners ASO, was ignored when Adams said that the team would stay.

Everyone is bracing for more chaos on Wednesday.