'It's good that Israel doesn't appear on the list' - Barcelona mayor expecting calmer Tour de France 2026 Grand Départ after protest-marred Vuelta

The mayor of Barcelona Jaume Collboni has said he is relieved that the Israel-Premier Tech squad will not be lining up for the 2026 Tour de France Grand Départ in the Catalan capital with its current name.

After San Sebastian in 1992 and Bilbao in 2023, Barcelona is set to become the third city on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees to play host to the Tour start, next Saturday, July 4. A total of three stages will take place in Catalunya.

However, earlier this autumn, Barcelona city council had demanded the exclusion of Israel-Premier Tech from the lineup of the next Tour de France.

Whilst they also insisted that the race start would go ahead in Catalunya, their demand also mirrored protests in the 2025 Vuelta a España about the team's presence in the race, which led to the cancellation of the Vuelta's final stage.

The potential for a crisis next summer was largely defused in early October, when Israel-Premier Tech said it would be "moving away from its current Israeli identity," with a change of name and rebrand in 2026.

Speaking at the 2026 Tour de France route presentation, Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni told La Vanguardia it was "doubly good news" that "no Israeli team" would be appearing in the upcoming race.

"We have to celebrate that on the official list the name of Israel does not appear," Collboni said. "That gives us complete guarantees."

Last year during the Tour de France, there were some sporadic protests about Israel-Premier Tech's presence and at the finish line in Toulouse on stage 11, a demonstrator was manhandled to the ground by a Tour official after he ran onto the course just as the race was approaching. However, there was nothing on the scale or intensity of the Vuelta a España pro-Palestine protests in September.

In a separate interview with Dernière Heure, Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme said on Thursday that he believed that the "international situation" - a reference to the ceasefire recently declared in Gaza - "had moved in the right direction compared with how it was some weeks ago."

As for Israel's changing of name, Prudhomme also felt that this would lead to a lowering of any potential for tension, with fears that there could be disruption on the scale of the Vuelta last September lessening as well.

"The UCI has to confirm it, but the team is due to have a different name and new licence," Prudhomme added. "And of course, that is a move towards a calmer situation."

Meanwhile, Catalunya is looking forward to hosting two important stages in the 2026 race, the first a team time trial, the second a very hilly finale in Barcelona prior to the start in the Catalan town of Granollers of stage 3, which then takes the race back into France for its first summit finish.

"They go up Montjuïc" - one of Barcelona's best-known parks, which features every March in the last stage of the Volta a Catalunya - "and there's nobody here [in Paris] who's not thinking about what [Tadej] Pogačar can do on stage 2," town hall official David Escudé told La Vanguardia at the Tour presentation.

"The first stage will depend a lot more on how the squads opt to tackle it because it's a team time trial, but an unusual one. We'll all be very excited to see what actually happens.