Israel Cycling Academy prepares for the historic Giro d’Italia on the battlefield of David and Goliath.
The Giro team starts training camp in the Jerusalem mountains and will be presented on Tuesday’s press conference.
Team to commemorate Gino Bartali actions during the holocaust.
Tel Aviv. April 30, 2018.
Israel Cycling Academy will begin its final days of preparation to the historic Giro d’Italia in a series of training in the place that David battled Goliath thousands of years ago.
Academy’s Giro team will land in Israel Monday night and the next day will start training in the Jerusalem mountains for 3 consecutive days before the Giro begins in Jerusalem on May 4th.
“For us, to have our last training for the Giro in this area is symbolic for more than one reason,” said the General Manager Ran Margaliot. “This is the place where all Israeli riders come to train and climb. That’s where our Israelis riding the Giro, Guy Sagiv and Guy Niv, started out racing, so for us, it’s coming full circle. Here we are on the verge of Israel’s greatest cycling moments.”
On Tuesday, minutes after the first warm-up to the Giro starts with the 8 Giro riders, the team will stop on a ridge called Tel Azeka that overlooks the place where David met Goliath, an against-the-odds battle that ended with the giant’s defeat. “In a way, you can see this as a metaphor for our expected battles in the Giro where many of our rivals are giants but, like David, we are going to give it our all. In particular, the team is behind Guy Niv and Guy Sagiv and we set a goal to see them finishing in Rome although we know it’s a huge task. Their teammates will support them. We are one team, not eight individuals.”
From the moment the team lands in Israel, one of the main priorities is to protect the riders, especially the Israelis, from the pressures around. “Physically they are ready and the training is simply to maintain their form, but our main goal is to keep the team relaxed as much as possible,” said Team Manager Kjell Carlström. “They will spend so much energy racing the twenty-one stages from Jerusalem to Rome that we don’t want to waste their energy before Friday when it all starts.”
The team has declared Tuesday as the media day, with the training session open to the press, followed by an official Giro press conference where all the riders and staff will attend. Also present will be the two team owners, Ron Baron and Sylvan Adams, the latter is the man responsible for bringing the Giro to Israel.
The next day (Wednesday, May 2nd), Academy will be the only team in the Giro to take part in a ceremony commemorating Gino Bartali, the Italian cycling legend who saved Jews by smuggling documents from Florence to Assisi during WWII. As a tradition, the team annually rides this route to keep Bartali’s memory alive.
Press are invited to attend the following events:
May 1st
10:00 Press gathering in Bar Bahar Café (Bar Giroa)
10:15 ICA arrives at Bar Bahar Café (Bar Giora)
10:15-10:30 Interviews with riders
10:30 Training begins
11:00 ICA arrives at Tel Azeka for a photoshoot
11:10 Training resumes
16:00 ICA official press conference at Waldorf Astoria Hotel
May 2nd
10:15 ICA arrives at Bar Bahar Café
10:15-10:30 Interviews with riders
10:30 Training begins
14:30 ICA arrives on bikes to Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center
15:00 Gino Bartali Ceremony
19:15-19:45 Media interviews with riders at team hotel
Please note that every effort will be made for the team to arrive at events as scheduled but there may be an occasional delay, particularly with events following training sessions.
