Spain’s Vuelta final stage abandoned due to Palestinian solidarity protests

The final stage of one of the world’s most prestigious cycling races has been cancelled due to Palestinian solidarity protests.
Protesters knocked down barriers and blocked roads at the La Vuelta competition on the final leg in central Madrid.
More than 1,500 police officers were deployed in a bid to control the protests
Throughout the three-week race, hundreds of protesters have objected to the participation of Israel’s Premier Tech team.

Lily Mayers is a freelance journalist in Madrid, and she says the protests have brought an historic end to an historic event.

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The final stage of one of the world’s most prestigious cycling races has been cancelled due to Palestinian solidarity protests. [Applause] Protesters knocked down barriers and blocked roads at the Lava competition on the final leg in central Madrid. More than 1,500 police officers were deployed in a bid to control the protests. Throughout the three-week race, hundreds of protesters have objected to the participation of Israel’s premier tech team. Well, Lily Mayers is a freelance journalist. She joins us live from Madrid. Lily, thanks for being with us. You were there as all of this unfolded. Uh, tell us how it happened. Good afternoon, Jonah. Well, just to give a bit of background for international audiences, LA Welder has been running for um for about 90 years and it’s a 3-week course across Spain. So, in the past couple of weeks, there has been quite widespread protests in Spain at the inclusion of the Israel Premier Tech team because of the ongoing war in Gaza. In in the last couple of weeks, protesters in Spanish towns have been actively trying to obstruct the course um for uh as part of their protest uh occasionally also causing crashes along the course. They had been working, you know, knowing that the finishing line is in Madrid City, which has always been planned to be this evening at about 7:30 p.m. So this afternoon from uh early afternoon, thousands of protesters gathered in sites along the final course in Madrid City with heaps of flags and um banners in support of uh Palestine. What happened at around uh 6:30 p.m. was crowds ended up flooding onto the street, pushing down the barriers uh and clashing with police quite dramatically. I was at a Tatcha station where uh crowds flooded onto the course uh pushed police back to their SWAT cars. Police then in response used tear gas on the protesters to push them back. barriers uh of the fences which were used to create the course were then used to build obstructions across the road to make sure that the race couldn’t go ahead. At 7 p.m. Love Welter issued an official statement saying for security reasons the race had ended early and that there would not be a ceremony or a podium ceremony as had been planned. After the announcement, there were loads of cheers. Lots of protesters were saying they felt their protest directly had an impact. You know, they really felt like they were working for a direct cause and they were successful tonight. So, they were celebrating. There was groups seen scenes of disruption as well and a heavy security presence of course. I I want to ask you whether Madrid has grown used in the last two years as the war in Gaza has gone on to scenes like this to protest pro Palestinian protests like other European capitals have done. I’m thinking of London of course but elsewhere. Absolutely. Definitely. I was asking protesters tonight if this was the biggest one they’ve been to and they said absolutely not. Um it was true that this was a unique protest in that crowds were really dispersed along multiple points of the final core. So it wasn’t a huge march. Um but it was huge. I mean Madrid is a city that is fond of a protest. Uh but they’re very very very uh well vocal and visually supportive of the Palestinian cause. You see flags virtually everywhere you go in Madrid and this was definitely a huge turnout. Lily Mayers, thanks so much for being on the scene for us there in in Madrid. Thank you. Don’t miss out. Get the full picture. Subscribe to Alazer for reliable news, expert insight. Like, share. Stay ahead.