Just before the jump to the 21st and last section of the Tour de France, the Israel Premier Tech team lost two more riders - Michael Woods and Guillaume Boivin - and was actually left with half the vehicle that managed to survive the toughest bicycle race in the world.
Still, the smiles in the group spread everywhere.
And rightly so.
The Israeli team arrived at the Tour with zero expectations and with two riders who were removed from the squad due to the corona virus - Darryl Impi and Omar Goldstein, who was just exposed to a confirmed patient and was replaced the night before the riders' first presentation at Gai Niv.
Jonas Vingor.
Won the Tour de France, photo: Reuters
Niv, 28, started the season like his team - on the face.
In moderate shape and with recovery from Corona, Niv may have dreamed of the second column in his career, but he didn't give it too much of a chance.
Yesterday he became the first (and the only? Time will tell) Israeli to successfully dismantle the infamous French race twice.
This is no small thing, and not an achievement that can be undone with a wave of the hand.
By comparison, he played twice in his career in the 21-day Champions League final.
Niv finished the tour in 77th place overall out of 138 riders who finished, and unlike his first tour, at the beginning of the corona virus, this time his friends and family were already waiting for him at the finish line.
This is an unprecedented Israeli achievement.
Jonas Vingor.
won the Tour de France,
Goldstein deserved to try to ride in his second column, especially against the background of his offensive abilities, but he will still get a chance.
The Spanish Valletta, which will open in less than a month in Utrecht, the Netherlands, is as tailor-made as the Tour, and if no germs hold it back, it will be able to prove how much we may have missed it in France.
Israel Premier Tech is above all the success of its owners, Sylvan Adams and Ron Brown, who are motivated by an uncompromising love for the industry and know how to criticize their employees/riders whenever necessary.
And the season definitely was.
And quite a bit.
Guy Niv
An impressive race in France, photo: Noa Arnon
Chris Fromm, the biggest and most expensive star that Adams and Brown signed in his career, arrived at the tour that closed yesterday in excellent shape, with almost no trace of the excessive injury he suffered in Dauphine two years ago.
Entering the wall and returning to the islands on a section of the Alps in Tor definitely requires a very specific type of ability.
And if you thought that the pair of owners would give up trying to win a section in Valletta, at least at the moment they have no such intention.
The tension in the team was reduced by the Australian Simon Clark already in the fifth section, which he won, and later arranged the comeback of Froome and the victory of the Canadian Hugo Hall in the 16th stage.
"No one expected such a performance from us, it was a wonderful journey", Niv concluded at the end.
The Danish Jonas Vingor from the Yambo Wisma team won the tour after an otherworldly performance in the 11th segment, where he actually secured the title.
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