The 2023 Tour de France was another successful one for Israel – Premier Tech with the team coming home with an epic stage win and a general strong show of strength from all eight riders, always getting in the mix to show off the team colors. On the final day of racing, Corbin Strong sprinted to ninth place in the iconic sprint on Champs-Élysées in Paris.
“I am happy with our performance at this year’s Tour de France. I feel this is the best team we’ve ever sent”, IPT owner Sylvan Adams explains. “The bar was set quite high last year, as we won two stages. This year, while we took only one stage on Mike Woods’ heroic climb up the Puy de Dôme, we were very close to securing another victory on several occasions.
“The entire cycling world appreciated our aggressive racing style, which followed our strong showing at this year’s Giro d’Italia, where Derek Gee earned the title of ‘most combative rider’. At the Tour, Krists Neilands’ attacking style was equally merit worthy. We are a young team that is having success and being noticed at cycling’s biggest and hardest race. I promise that we will be even better at next year’s Tour de France.”
Michael Woods’ solo victory on stage 9 to Puy de Dôme naturally stands out as the main highlight from a range of impressive performances by the IPT riders and Woods is looking back on his race with great satisfaction.
“I’m really proud of this victory, it is a career defining moment for me. This was my 10th Grand Tour and it has been one of the best Grand Tours I have done with a team. The staff were amazing, the morale was great, and we raced super well. We were certainly one of the most aggressive teams and were it not for a bit of bad luck I think we could have had another win. The team rode exceptionally well throughout this Tour.”
Sports director, Steve Bauer, echoes the words from Woods, explaining that all the IPT riders showed their worth during the past three weeks of racing.
“I think it has been a super good race for the team. Everybody stepped up at different moments in this Tour. We were always in the race, constantly going for wins and that’s really something we can take away from the race. Overall, the team effort was inevitably exceptional. Also, to arrive in Paris with eight riders is just fantastic. Everybody can be proud of their performance in this Tour.”
