Three images: top left, a cyclist in blue racing outdoors; top right, a cyclist in white and blue pedaling hard; bottom center, an athlete smiling and holding a New Zealand flag and medal, celebrating victory.
Corbin Strong cycling for Israel-Premier Tech and representing New Zealand at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

SportsJuly 2, 2025

The New Zealand cyclist, the Israeli team and a geopolitical storm

Guest writer
Three images: top left, a cyclist in blue racing outdoors; top right, a cyclist in white and blue pedaling hard; bottom center, an athlete smiling and holding a New Zealand flag and medal, celebrating victory.
Corbin Strong cycling for Israel-Premier Tech and representing New Zealand at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

A New Zealand Olympian is racing under Israel’s banner – and critics say it’s time to choose sides.

10.41am update: An earlier version of this story suggested Corbin Strong was a shoo-in for selection for the Tour de France team. He has not been selected but remains in the Israel–Premier Tech squad.

A Palestinian paracyclist who lost his leg in an Israeli air strike over a decade ago was killed in Gaza last month. Ahmed al-Dali, 33, a father of four, spent his life defying disability on a bicycle. Initially declared dead in a 2014 strike, he was later found alive in a morgue. Since October 7 2023 his team, the Palestinian Sunbirds, have distributed NZ$760,000 in aid across Gaza amid ongoing Israeli attacks.

While conflict continues to expand in the region, on the other side of the West Bank, Israel’s most elite cycling team, Israel–Premier Tech, is currently training for the Tour de France.

The team, which takes part in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia – the biggest male cycling races in the world – receives partial funding from the Israeli government.

Two of those riders, including one of Israel–Premier Tech’s stars, Corbin Strong, are New Zealanders. Strong represented New Zealand at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, and earned a gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Despite repeated requests, both the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) and Cycling New Zealand (NZC) declined to comment on Strong’s dual affiliation with Team New Zealand and the, in part, Israeli government-funded Israel–Premier Tech.

New Zealander Corbin Strong of Team Israel – Premier Tech competes in the Grand Prix des Hauts de France on May 14, 2024 in Le Touquet, France. (Photo: Luc Claessen/Getty Images)

Israel–Premier Tech is founded and owned by Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams. Adams refers to himself as “the self appointed ambassador at large for the State of Israel”. Friendly with both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, Adams frequently promotes Israeli propaganda, referring to the conflict between Israel and Palestine as “good vs. evil” and “civilisation against barbarism”.

At this year’s Giro Italia, protests from sports and cycling associations, Palestine solidarity groups, and human rights groups including Amnesty International disturbed the race at numerous points. The disruptions were so frequent that the live television coverage was forced to repeatedly acknowledge the protests and the calls to ban Israel–Premier Tech.

At each race, “ISRAEL” is emblazoned across every Israel–Premier Tech rider’s chest, a moving billboard for a government accused by the UN of war crimes and potential genocide. A former team member, Guy Niv, has said riders understand that “being on an Israeli team, they are ambassadors for the country”.

No ban has been handed down by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), prompting allegations of double standards.

“UCI excluded Russian and Belarussian cycling teams and prohibited UCI sporting events in the two countries, among many other sanctions,” says Stephanie Adam of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“It did so because it fully understood that cycling could be used to sportswash Russia’s illegal occupation. Yet UCI, demonstrating staggering levels of hypocrisy, has failed to take any action against Israel’s cycling team as Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza has raged on.”

The UCI has said it remains focused on sport and not politics, according to comments made to Cycling Weekly. Historically, the UCI has followed the guidelines of the IOC.

Despite repeated ceasefire attempts, attacks on Gaza have entered their 20th month, with over 53,000 Palestinians confirmed dead, according to Al Jazeera. The New Zealand government has repeatedly condemned several actions of the Israeli government and recently joined 23 other countries and the United Nations in calling for humanitarian aid to resume. 

The 2025 Tour de France is just days away. Invercargill-born Strong has not been selected to ride for Israel–Premier Tech, despite earning a podium place at the Giro d’Italia in May.

What is certain is the prospect of protests. In April, the BDS movement called for peaceful actions at this year’s Grand Tours, to demonstrate against Israel–Premier Tech’s participation.

Gold medalist Corbin Strong of Team New Zealand celebrates at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in London on July 31, 2022. (Photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Is Israel–Premier Tech sportswashing for Israel?

Sportswashing is a relatively new term, first used in 2015 by human rights advocates to describe how Azerbaijan used major sporting events, including Formula One, to deflect from human rights violations. But according to Steve Jackson, an academic at the University of Otago, the practice can be dated back to ancient Rome and is depicted in films like Gladiator.

Sportswashing happens when “political entities use sport as a vehicle to deflect political issues via entertainment,” says Jackson. “It is the deliberate and strategic use of sport, events, athletes, teams to enhance the reputation of a nation-state or a corporation. And conversely, to hide or camouflage their ethical violations, including those associated with human rights.”

Cycling, a sport without a strong tradition of political activism, has often attracted sponsors with deep pockets – and not always spotless morals – due to the high cost of running elite teams. The British team Ineos Grenadiers, for example, is sponsored by Ineos, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies. New Zealand Rugby also signed with Ineos in 2021, prompting sharp criticism, including by Greenpeace who said it went against our country’s clean, green values.

Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams introduces the team, then called Israel Start-Up Nation, for the first time in 2019. (Photo: JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Sylvan Adams has explicitly described the Israel–Premier Tech team as apolitical, despite being deeply political himself. The Times of Israel describes it as “a private initiative meant to boost Israel’s image worldwide”.

Sport and politics have always mixed for Adams. He led Israel’s $18m bid to host the start of the Giro d’Italia in 2018, the first in a series of international sporting investments. Additionally, he “has worked to change Israel’s image among non-Jews through high-profile sports and cultural activities,” according to an interview with Jewish News Syndicate.

Today, Israel–Premier Tech’s presence in the Tour de France presents Israel as open, peaceful and globally connected, defined by elite sport and international recognition. This image contrasts sharply with the actions of Israeli politicians and the IDF, who “have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”, according to foreign minister Winston Peters.

The Springbok Tour, politics and sport in NZ

New Zealand has its own turbulent history with sport and politics.

The 1981 Springbok Tour sparked widespread civil unrest in Aotearoa. For 56 days, 150,000 people protested South Africa’s apartheid regime.

The NZ Rugby Football Union “should have joined the sports boycott of apartheid South Africa,” says former All Black Robert Burgess, who turned down an invitation to trial for the All Blacks’ 1970 South Africa tour.

Burgess refused the trial “as a protest against apartheid and the way sport in South Africa was segregated on race”. Five years earlier, he also turned down the 1976 tour of South Africa, where five Māori players were granted “white status” for the trip.

That same tour prompted 25 African nations to boycott the Montreal Olympics in protest against New Zealand. Today, there is widespread agreement that Burgess was on the right side of history – and the NZRFU was not. In 1964, the IOC banned South Africa from the Olympics due to its refusal to denounce the ongoing apartheid; this ban was only lifted in 1992.

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Many would consider what Burgess did to be above and beyond the call of duty as an international rugby player. So, what can we expect of today’s elite athletes?

Israel–Premier Tech and two-time NZ Olympian Corbin Strong receives part of his pay cheque from the Israeli government and frequently wears Israeli-branded clothing. He and teammate George Bennett represent both New Zealand and Israel. While representing Team New Zealand at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Strong announced a two-year contract extension with Israel–Premier Tech.

Strong is not the only non-Israeli rider on the team. Australian Simon Clarke was protested against during the Australian National Championships in 2024 for representing an Israeli team. In response, Israel–Premier Tech released a statement, saying, “We are the only professional sports team in the world that includes Israel as part of its name, and we will continue to do so and proudly represent the country”.

NZOC and NZC were contacted for comment on Strong’s joint relationship with both NZC and Israel. Both declined interviews. It remains unclear whether Strong will continue to be allowed to ride for both New Zealand and Israel–Premier Tech. Strong did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

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Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar at the 1995 World Cup (Photos: Getty Images / Design: The Spinoff)
Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar at the 1995 World Cup (Photos: Getty Images / Design: The Spinoff)

SportsJune 24, 2025

The ghost of 1995: that Rugby World Cup final, 30 years on

Guest writer
Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar at the 1995 World Cup (Photos: Getty Images / Design: The Spinoff)
Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar at the 1995 World Cup (Photos: Getty Images / Design: The Spinoff)

On the 30th anniversary of one of rugby’s most memorable days, James Borrowdale reflects on what it all meant.

According to Rian Malan, the great South African journalist whose classic of memoir and reportage My Traitor’s Heart meditated on the horror and stupidity of Apartheid while diagnosing the predicament of its Afrikaner overseers as the regime reached its bloody denouement, a generation of white South Africans speak about the events of this day the way Americans once spoke about the Kennedy assassination: “Where were you, and what do you remember?”

That it was a game of rugby that places this day next to one on which a president was shot dead perhaps gives a clear indication of white South Africa’s cultural priorities: 30 years ago, the All Blacks met the Springboks in the epic final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the New Zealanders taking the field against a South African side galvanised by the optimism of a nation – and by Nelson Mandela, the personification of that optimism – whose darkest days seemed to be behind it. The Rainbow Nation had bloomed from the ashes of Apartheid, and even Ellis Park, a traditional bastion of Afrikanerdom, was decorated in its colours.

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I make only a much-qualified claim (or should that be an admission?) to being a white South African myself. Although my first ancestor to step foot on African soil did so as a Dutch clergyman in the 1740s and I was born in what was then known as Natal, by the time I turned 10 in 1995, I had spent 90 percent of my life in Aotearoa, my parents having taken us from South Africa during one of its most bloody years as, in its death throes, Apartheid sought to reestablish itself through increased repression. We settled in Christchurch, where Dad had accepted a job at the university, and hardly seemed to look back at the country that had formed us. There was one dimly-remembered family holiday in the year before I started school, but that was largely it. By the time Jonah Lomu was barrelling through that World Cup in the country of my birth, my parents’ accents had softened and South Africa – and being South African – was merely a curiosity at the very outer edge of my identity.

Even so, I can readily answer the questions posed by Malan (though, of course, this could also be taken as an expression of how I had taken to life in this country, where rugby was equally treasured). Mum woke me in the middle of the night, and we buried ourselves under a pile of blankets in the lounge of her first post-divorce home, a lightly renovated Christchurch villa with a fantastic climbing tree looming over the front garden and an Anglican church across the road. We shared a block of Cadbury chocolate as the unbearable minutes ticked by, the small TV in the midnight dark shining with the hard clarity of Johannesburg’s highveld air.

But no matter how hard I try, I can no longer parse the memory of watching the game live from the times I’ve seen it since. I can’t recall know how I felt during the opening exchange of penalty goals, nor when the almost limitless possibilities of an early Lomu charge – the kind that had proved so decisive throughout the tournament – were snuffed out by a textbook tackle from the Springbok halfback Joost van der Westhuizen, so proving the All Blacks’ talisman could be brought down. In hindsight, it was perhaps that moment when the South Africans, heavy underdogs before the game, truly came to believe they could win; when they did, after the protracted back-and-forth of drop goals – and Andrew Mehrtens’ agonising miss late in normal time – I do remember a bitter disappointment following me back to my cold bed. If I had gone into that game with any question of divided loyalties, I ended it without. And only much later could I appreciate the game for what it really meant. 

It is of course impossible to separate any sport organised along national lines from the historicopolitical context shaping those nations, something this country learned or re-learned during the 1981 Springbok tour, but the long shadow of Apartheid has always given South African sport an extra political edge. This is true of the present, just as it was of the past. My defining image of the 1995 final is not the sweetly struck Joel Stransky drop goal that won it, nor the ragged pile of green jerseys emerging from the rubble of the game’s final collapsed scrum with the knowledge of victory: it is Mandela on the podium, arms aloft in a Springbok jersey, celebrating with what seemed unadulterated glee.

He had reason to be happy. Three years previously – before the country’s democratic elections, when Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) and the old Afrikaner power structure of  F.W. de Klerk’s National Party were still hotly debating the constitutional shape of the South Africa to come – the Springboks had emerged from the isolation of Apartheid to meet the All Blacks in a game known as the Return Test, also at Ellis Park. Then, despite assurances to the contrary, the game became a rallying point for Afrikaners who felt their political power slipping from their grasp. The old anthem, “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika”, echoed through the stadium; hundreds of orange, white and blue flags – another hated symbol of oppression – flew over the stands. Even a moment of silence meant to honour the victims of Apartheid was filled instead with a chant of “Fok die ANC!” You need not speak Afrikaans to understand the sentiment. 

The canonisation of Mandela as a kind of secular saint sometimes does the great man a disservice, obscuring the canny of his political mind; to turn the disaster of ‘92 into the country-unifying triumph of 1995 took a special kind of diplomatic instinct that even many of his ANC comrades found hard to understand. In his embrace of the Springboks, an institution beloved of the Afrikaner masses but despised by the black majority, Malan writes, “he seemed to be showing that he loved us, in spite of everything, and it suddenly seemed churlish not to respond in kind.” The ‘95 final, so far from providing an aggrieved minority with an outlet for discontent, instead “reduced even the hardest Boers to uncontrollable weeping and cries of ‘That’s my president’,” according to Malan. 

Siya Kolisi lifts the World Cup in 2023 after the Springboks – again – beat the All Blacks in the final (Photo: Getty Images)

Perhaps some of those same Afrikaners wept at the sight of the inspirational, and black, Springbok captain Siya Kolisi holding the same trophy aloft in 2023 in front of a team multiracial South Africans; maybe some even shed a tear when Temba Bavuma, black captain of the South African cricket team, led his team to World Test Championship victory just over a week ago. Equally, perhaps not: South Africa remains a deeply divided country, where Afrikaner-only settlements like Orania and Kleinfontein still exist, and where an incredibly high murder rate has been manufactured by some into evidence for the fictitious white genocide President Trump brought to the attention of the world when he ambushed Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s leader, with the allegation in that surreal Oval Office exchange. 

In a time when the actual genocidal violence of Israel, challenged by South Africa in the International Court of Justice, grows ever more brazen, and now threatens to widen into world-shaking war, the ghost of ‘95 reminds that sport has a power to unite, even if momentarily. It happened 30 years ago, while also giving us a sporting spectacle for the ages  – what wouldn’t we give for another such miracle now?

We know you know it’s tough out there. We are writing regularly about the economy, the price of butter, local business closures, and the cost of being a person in Aotearoa in 2025. We’ve seen the price of everything go up, cinemas are using off-brand Jaffas, and Hayden Donnell says everything is “rooted”. Sometimes it feels like things are hopeless, but there is still a meeting place for like-minded New Zealanders and a home for local stories, well-researched journalism, humour and hot takes. That place is The Spinoff.

If you’ve read this far, then you appreciate what we’re trying to achieve. Maybe you come back for our clear-sighted commentary on politics, or maybe it’s for our cultural offering of books, TV, film, theatre and live event reviews and recommendations. Whatever the reason, we appreciate your company. But it comes at a cost. For every 100 Spinoff readers, only 3.2 support us financially.

We need this to be higher to confidently plan for the future, continue to take the government to task, back the cultural sector in Aotearoa, and bring the unique perspectives you love to the biggest stories of the week. If you haven’t already, please consider making a regular donation today. Thank you.

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