Roy Loewenberg did the impossible: he conquered @LeTour 🇫🇷 But just before reaching the finish line in Paris, he was on the brink of breaking down. “I told myself: ‘I beat Leukemia, so it’s okay if the Tour de France beats me’,” he says. As evening fell on Sunday, Loewenberg captured the victory photo he had dreamed of ever since he set out on the impossible mission of his life: to complete the full Tour route, exactly one year after Leukemia nearly took his life. With his children beside him, he raised the bike he had ridden for 3,338 kilometers across France — through climbs and descents, in heavy rain and blistering heat. But only he knows how close he came to not making it. As unbelievable as that may sound to those who know him — “The Lion from Tel Aviv,” as he was nicknamed by members of the @thetour21 team who took on the challenge to raise funds for @CureLeukaemia — his breaking point came just before Paris. It was stage 20, from Nantua to Pontarlier, the day before the sweet finale awaited him at the finish line in the French capital. His body was shutting down. Torrential rain and freezing cold hit him. “I was descending and couldn’t feel my hands,” he says. “I looked at them — they felt like foreign objects. I couldn’t brake, let alone shift gears. Everything was frozen. I was finished. Destroyed. Exhausted. I told myself it wouldn’t be so bad to quit now, not to make it to Paris.” This story, which began when Leukemia struck a 46-year-old hi-tech professional and amateur cyclist, continued with a bone marrow transplant that saved his life, and led him — still thin and fragile — to the IPT training camp as a special guest, ends with a nearly unbelievable happy ending. “To be honest? Even I didn’t think I had a chance,” Loewenberg admits. “When I decided to take this on, I gave myself maybe a 10% chance. But everything changed when Israel – Premier Tech decided to help me. “During this journey I learned that anything is possible. It’s not a cliché. I learned that the spirit, the mind, has a strength the body doesn’t.” 🇫🇷 #TDF2025 #YallaIPT #FactorRacing