Last week I was looking for something to watch, which usually means reruns of House Hunters or Magnum PI, and on the guide I came across what looked like the final stage of the Vuelta a Espana, the last of the year’s grand cycling tours – the Tour de France being the most well known. Only when I clicked on the show icon, it went to some prerecorded show about something not cycling related. I tried that a couple of times with the same result, then after a quick Google search came to realize that the 21st and final stage of the race had been cancelled. Not because of weather or some kind of road issue, but because of mass protests both in Madrid, where the race would finish, and along the route, creating what would be a largely impassable and clearly dangerous circuit. So instead of finishing the Vuelta, they all jumped in cars and held and impromptu ceremony to award the overall title.
The protest were about the war in Gaza. And more specifically, about the inclusion of the Israel-Premier Tech cycling team in the race. The team is based in Israel but, to be fair, only had one Israeli rider in the Vuelta. Regardless, protesters wanted them out of the race and planned disruptions throughout the 21 stages, which led to a series of course changes, new finish lines, and, of course, a hot mess on the final day. For perspective, this would be like cancelling the final quarter of the Super Bowl or the last mile of the Boston Marathon. And while the Israel-Tech team stayed in the race, they did remove the word Israel from their jerseys, perhaps for safety reasons.
Not for nothing, this wasn’t the only recent sporting event involving Israel that’s been impacted the last several days. After an open letter from Canadian academics, activists, and athletes calling for Canada to cancel their Davis Cup tennis match against Israel, Tennis Canada decided to play last week’s match behind closed doors and without the 1500 or so fans who had already bought tickets. They cited intelligence info that seemed to indicate there would be significant interruption if they let people in, so this was the best option. The International Tennis Federation did add that neither Israel nor Israeli athletes are suspended from any competition, and that this decision was based on safety precautions. I’m certain there will be other cases like this in the upcoming months, although it should be noted Israel won’t qualify for the 26 World Cup, likely allowing FIFA to exhale deeply.
I will not use any time or space discussing the conflict itself, and I certainly lack expertise in any detailed analysis of what continues to be yet another gut wrenching moment in global history. And therefore, I’m not going to say anything about anyone being right or wrong. I’ll also point out that there’s nothing particularly new about using sports as either a punishment or incentive for nation states. As we speak, neither Russian nor Belarusian athletes compete under their own flag in things like tennis, and both nations are banned from the World Cup. South Africa probably remains the most well known sports ban, having been kept from the Olympics from 1964 to 92 because of its apartheid policies. But generally speaking, the bar is pretty high to get excluded, and it’s typically built on a global consensus.
Which brings us to two key questions here in the conversation around a disrupted bike race and tennis match. One, do sports bans actually work? In the case of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, it doesn’t seem like it. And given the potential to use sport as rare moment of human interaction amongst otherwise severed publics, I wonder if it’s a great strategy anymore – use the American divide as a case study. And should athletes bear the brunt of global politics on which the likely have no impact? And second, it’s hard to know if this notion of consensus even exists anymore. It may have been easier for the global community to universally condemn apartheid. But in world of eroding borders where we’re losing sight of universal truth much less a cannon of news and information, the designation of good vs bad seems hazier than ever. Which means any assessment of who should or shouldn’t be allowed to play sports feels increasingly unclear. And, to state the obvious, increasingly up the eye or bias of the beholder.
Which is why even though Stage 21 of the Vuelta was the last one, this is clearly far from over.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the College of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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