'Confusion' but little surprise as protests stop a second Vuelta stage

It remains to be seen if the Vuelta a España will reach Madrid, but it certainly wasn’t able to reach the summit of Castro de Herville on stage 16 in Galicia.

A large demonstration in protest at Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the Israel-Premier Tech team’s presence at this Vuelta led the race organisation to stop the race ahead of the final climb, with 8km remaining.

It was the second time a stage has been stopped prematurely on this Vuelta. A similar demonstration in Bilbao led to stage 11 being neutralised with 3km to go. On that occasion, there was no stage winner. This time out, escapee Egan Bernal (Ineos) will go down in the record books as the winner, but the circumstances were otherwise markedly similar.

Speaking to RTVE after the stage, UAE Team Emirates-XRG sports manager Matxin Joxean Fernandez said that news of the alteration to the stage finale was communicated shortly before the final climb, and there was confusion over the location of the new finish line.

“It was basically a copy of the Bilbao stage,” Matxin said. “When we were starting the last descent, so with about 14km to go, they told us it was going to finish with 8km to go. 

“We knew it was before the climb but we were trying to find out if it was going to be exactly at the 8km to go banner or if there was going to be a line somewhere before then, so there was confusion.”

The epicentre of the protest was with 3.5km to go, not far from where the team buses were parked. Demonstrators were gathered on the roadside with Palestinian flags and chanting for Israel-Premier Tech’s exclusion from the race.

“We don’t know how it was up there, they told us that the road had been blocked at 3km to go,” Matxin said. “I don’t know why they didn’t stop it at 5km or 7km to go, but that’s a decision from the organisation and we have to respect it, because we’re in the race.”

Earlier on Tuesday, police removed a tree trunk that was placed across the route in an apparent act of sabotage. The incident took place approximately 30km from the end of Tuesday’s stage, and authorities worked swiftly to cut away the tree, which was felled outside the town of Morgadans at the foot of the penultimate climb of the Alto de Prado climb.

Israel-Premier Tech’s presence on the Vuelta a España has been the subject of repeated protests from human rights demonstrators due to Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza, and more demonstrations are anticipated in the coming days, most notably at Valladolid, site of the stage 18 time trial.

Over 64,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, have been killed since Israel invaded Gaza almost two years ago in response to the October 7 terrorist attacks, which killed more than 700 people.

UAE’s João Almeida finished Tuesday’s shortened stage alongside red jersey Jonas Vingegaard and he remains 48 seconds down on the Dane. Although UAE had called Marc Soler to drop back from the break in the finale, Matxin said the manoeuvre was a precaution rather than a preamble to an Almeida attack.

“No, we had Marc in front in case we needed him to stop,” Matxin said. “He couldn’t win the stage because he was two minutes down on the leaders. We only had Felix [Grossschartner] with João by then, so for safety we called Marc back.”