Giro d’Italia bike race set for historic ride through hot and hilly Jerusalem

The world’s best bike riders gathered in Jerusalem Friday for the start of the Giro d’Italia cycling race, sweating through unseasonably hot conditions to kick off Israel’s historic hosting of the event.

The time trials for the world-famous bike race up and down the capital’s hilly streets will mark the first time a cycling Grand Tour will ever be held outside Europe and is being touted as the largest sporting event ever hosted by the Jewish state.

A total of 176 cyclists from 22 teams, including an Israeli delegation for the first time, will take part in the time trials, starting at 1:30 p.m. The 9.7-kilometer (6-mile) route will take riders near the Old City and some of Jerusalem’s holiest sites, but organizers have been careful to avoid any politically sensitive areas.

Nonetheless, Palestinians have protested the decision to hold the event in Israel, and boycott activists have promised to demonstrate against it.

The Giro itself caused a minor uproar when organizers billed the opening leg as in “West Jerusalem,” angering Israel, which considers the entire city to be its eternal capital. The Giro ultimately reverted back to simply using “Jerusalem,” which in turn enraged Palestinians, who said it served to “legitimize the annexation of Jerusalem.”

The Palestinians and their allies have also objected to promotional materials on the Giro’s social media that include photos and videos of the Old City of Jerusalem.

While organizers insist political and security concerns are no sweat, mother nature has refused to play along, with already high temperatures expected to climb Friday, enveloping the capital in hot, hazy conditions.

In Jerusalem, the mercury is expected to reach 33 Celsius (91 Fahrenheit) relatively breezy compared to even higher temperatures in the rest of the country, but still hotter than riders normally have to contend with in Europe.

Temperatures are expected to moderate significantly by Saturday morning, in time for the second stage.

For Israel, hosting the event marks a major coup and looks to draw tens of thousands of tourists and a chance to showcase its people and landscape to a global television audience.

The race is the biggest and most prestigious sporting event ever hosted in Israel and features four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome, who is looking to become only the third person ever to win the three Grand Tour titles in a row.

In its 101-year history, the Giro has previously opened a dozen times outside Italy but never outside Europe. Its arrival in Israel is the result of the lobbying efforts of Sylvan Adams, a Canadian-Israeli cycling enthusiast who conjured the idea to coincide with Israel’s marking 70 years of independence. He said his aim was twofold: to promote the sport in Israel and to project its “normal” image to the world, rather than the typical association of war and conflict.

“This is a mini-Giro, if you will. In three days we can cover a similar percentage of the country as Italy does in the whole race,” Adams told The Associated Press. “We’ll show the beauty of the country, that Israel is a sporting country and that it is open and free and most importantly safe.”

After the Jerusalem time trials, the 167-kilometer (104-mile) second stage Saturday will whiz down the Mediterranean coast from Haifa to Tel Aviv. Stage 3 on Sunday will follow a lengthy 229-kilometer (143-mile) route — the second-longest leg of the entire race — from Beersheba in the Negev desert down to Israel’s southern tip of Eilat along the Red Sea.

The race will then transfer to Italy, and the island of Sicily, for an early rest day on May 7.

The event consists of 21 days of racing, totaling 3,546.2 kilometers (2,203.6 miles) with 44 kilometers (27 miles) of vertical elevation.

All eyes will be on Froome. A victory at the Giro would make him the seventh rider to win all three Grand Tours — cycling’s top three stage races — and only the third to hold the three titles at the same time. After successfully defending his Tour de France title last year, the 32-year-old Froome went on to win the Spanish Vuelta for the first time.

“The Giro is special and full of history, and I am looking forward to racing it again after almost a decade,” Froome said in a statement. “I’ve had a different start to the season as I’ve obviously been aiming to try and reach my peak quite a bit earlier than usual. But the target of going for a third consecutive Grand Tour has given me new motivation.”

Locals, though, will be rooting for the Israel Cycling Academy, formed in 2014 to promote biking in Israel and competing in the event for the first time. While most of the team comes from outside the country, two Israelis are included in the eight riders.

For Guy Niv, one of the two, the race is an “honor.”

“It’s a great honor to be one of the two first Israelis to ride a grand tour,” he said. “It’s a kind of dream coming true.”