Israel Start-Up Nation team owner organized mission to save 167 Afghan nationals

Over the past month, team Israel Start-Up Nation owner, Sylvan Adams, initiated a mission to save 167 Afghan nationals from the Taliban takeover of their country.

The operation was organized by Adams, who recruited an international group of diplomats, UCI President David Lappartient, an Israeli aid organization called IsraAid, and an eclectic set of individuals, who worked together to help a mixture of cyclists, sportswomen, female judges and police officers, families of diplomats and members of the Afghan parliament, human rights workers, students and professionals escape the clutches of the Taliban’s repressive regime.

Afghan women cyclists are in hiding and ‘under imminent threat’ from the Taliban

“I was contacted by a journalist, a cycling journalist who had been a coach of the Afghan women’s cycling team,” Sylvan Adams explained in an interview to the Canadian Jewish News.

It was an emotional, almost desperate, request for help. She told the story of a group of terrified Afghan cyclists stranded and hiding in Kabul. Knowing the team’s commitment to causes that go well beyond racing, she asked if there was something he could do.

At the end of October ISN owner Sylvan Adams landed in Tirana, Albania, to meet some of the girls who were rescued. It ended, not surprisingly, with a bike ride.