Here is an anomaly that will finally be fixed.
Italy was the only border country from which the Tour de France had never started.
This will finally be the case in 2024 with a big departure from Florence for a very special 111th edition since it will end in Nice because of the Paris 2024 Olympics. “The Tour started from all the countries bordering France.
He even left the Netherlands six times, which has no common border with France.
But he has never left Italy yet.
There is a kind of incongruity that will disappear, ”explains Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France who is present in Italy until Friday to present this great start in Florence in Tuscany and in Emilia-Romagna.
The 1st stage on June 29, 2024 will leave Florence to arrive in Rimini, where Marco Pantani died in 2004. Prudhomme.
The second, cut out for punchers, will set off from Cesenatico to reach a final circuit in Bologna via Imola where Julian Alaphilippe won his first world champion title in 2020. Finally, the 3rd, favorable to sprinters, will go from Yachting in Turin
😍 Here are the first 3 stages of the #TDF2024 and its Grand Départ from Florence!
😍 Here are the first 3 stages of #TDF2024 with a Grand Départ from Florence!
pic.twitter.com/NAp6KFspmG
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) December 21, 2022
After Copenhagen this year, Bilbao in 2023, Florence will therefore be the 3rd consecutive big start of the Tour de France abroad and the 26th in its history.
“Leaving abroad, not only do I assume it, but I claim it, continues Prudhomme.
French security forces will be in huge demand in 2024, so a big departure from abroad can help.
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One hundred years after the first Italian victory in the Tour de France with Ottavio Bottecchia in 1924, this start in Italy will also pay tribute during the course to several transalpine champions who have marked the history of cycling such as the three former winners of the Tour de France. , Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi or Marco Pantani.
“At kilometer zero after Florence, we will pass the Gino Bartali museum.
We will also pass in front of the place where Fausto Coppi rests.
There will be a stage start in Cesenatico where Marco Pantani is buried.
There is an obvious link with the legend of Italian cycling and its champions”, underlines the director of the Tour.
🎙️ Christian Prudhomme, on the #TDF2024 Grand Départ in Italy: "We wanted to pay tribute to the great Italian champions, 100 years after the first Italian victory on a Tour de France stage. pic.twitter.com/NpQRGTbkTj
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) December 21, 2022
Florence had already been a candidate for 2014. But the organizers then favored Leeds and Yorkshire.
But during confinement, Christian Prudhomme received a photo of Florence, the streets empty… “At the end of March 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, Matteo Renzi, the former mayor of Florence and ex-president of the Council, told me had texted a photo of his city with the caption: “
Florence empty, deserted but so beautiful.
I haven't forgotten my dreams of a big start.
After the pandemic, let's see.
“It restarted the thing”, says Christian Prudhomme, who says he is delighted and impatient to see the runners survey “the open-air museum of Florence, the shores of the Adriatic and the crossing of the Apennines”.
