On Saturday, the Vuelta a España, Spain’s premier cycling stage race and its equivalent to the Tour de France, was scheduled to end its three-week Grand Tour schedule in a largely ceremonial sprint stage in downtown Madrid. But thousands of pro-Palestine protesters, present at stages throughout the race, massed near the finish circuit, overwhelming the crowd control and dragging metal barriers onto the course.

The stage was called off soon after with no winner, the overall prizes already determined and locked in. These protest actions were a statement by the Spanish public against the participation in the race of team Israel–Premier Tech, a team specifically named and organized to “sportswash” Israel, a country currently perpetuating an ongoing genocide responsible for the deaths of more than 64,000 Palestinians, a majority of them children.

The scenes on the circuit in Madrid were striking as hundreds of protesters filled the race course, facing up to riot police, waving Palestinian flags, lighting flares, and strewing race infrastructure behind them onto the course. Protesters chanted “No pasarán,” literally forbidding passage of Israel-Premier Tech cyclists, echoing the famous anti-fascist slogan used in the Spanish civil war by left-wing forces fighting against fascist dictator Francisco Franco.