Israel-Premier Tech

Registered: Israel

Founded: 2014

Israel-Premier Tech was formed in 2014 as Israel Cycling Academy.

The aim at the start was to develop young riders from all over the world, with an obvious focus on Israel.

Czech rider Daniel Turek took the team's first victory, winning a stage at the 2015 Tour of Azerbaijan.

It was in 2018 where the team really pushed into the big races with a wild card invite to their first monument, Milan-San Remo, and their first grand tour, the Giro d'Italia, as the Giro was starting in Jerusalem that year.

Co-owner of the team Sylvan Adams played a big part in getting the Giro to Israel, saying he wanted to see cycling become a bigger activity in the country. It worked as the roads saw thousands of spectators come out and watch the race.

The next year saw the team grow and take part in more events.

The team operates a development team with a select group of under-23 riders in an attempt to grow young talent, especially those from Israel, which has retained the Israel Cycling Academy name.

Climber Ben Hermans had a great year in 2019, with his stand out performance being at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, where he put in a commanding display and winning the overall.

The Belgian also retained his title at the Tour of Austria.

Italian sprinter, Davide Cimolai, put in some great performances too with wins across multiple races.

In October of 2019 Israel Cycling Academy announced they would merge with the UCI WorldTour team, Katusha-Alpecin and move up to the top tier of cycling, using Katusha's old WorldTour licence.

The UCI approved the move and the team changed its name to Israel Start-Up Nation.

Along with the name change, some big name signing were brought in. André Greipel and Dan Martin signed from Lotto-Soudal and UAE Team Emirates respectively.

The team also kept on some key riders from the Katusha-Alpecin team, such as time trialing specialist Alex Dowsett and young Classics star Nils Politt, who had managed a second place at Paris-Roubaix earlier that year.

In July 2020, it was announced that seven-time Grand Tour winner, Chris Froome, would join the team from the start of the 2021 season until the end of his career.

Alongside Froome, signings of Daryl Impey, Michael Woods, Sep Vanmarcke and others have meant that the squad had a solid look to it for 2021.

The team had an average year, winning 17 races and finishing 10th in the UCI rankings. Highlights included Dan Martin winning a stage of the Giro d'Italia and Bern Hermans' series of wins in the summer.

Sep Vanmarcke and Michael Woods also achieved decent results in the spring classics, the former finishing fifth at the Tour of Flanders and the latter fifth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Froome largely disappointed, it taking longer than expected to come back from the career-threatening injury he suffered in 2019. However, he did battle on, finishing the Tour de France despite crashing.

The end of 2021 signalled the end of an era for the team, with veterans Dan Martin and André Greipel retiring. 

With new Canadian sponsors Premier Tech coming onboard, the team is now Israel-Premier Tech. Jakob Fuglsang and Giacomo Nizzolo are among the new signings expected to reward the faith shown in them.

Official Website: www.israelpremiertech.com/

Twitter feed: @IsraelPremTech

Facebook page: Facebook.com/IsraelPremierTech