There have been seven Italian Tour de France winners, taking 10 of the final yellow jerseys between them, but 2024 will mark the first time that the famous race has started in Italy.
Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme appeared on Italian broadcaster Rai to launch the official countdown to the Grand Départ of the 2024 Tour de France. The first start of the race from Italy will come 100 years after Ottavio Bottecchia first took the race win to the other side of the Alps.
Three stages over 200 kilometres in length will provide a classics style start to the biggest race in the world, with 29 June set to be the opening stage from Florence to Rimini, on the shores of the Adriatic in Emilia-Romagna, followed by a romp from Cesenatico to Bologna and a cross-country trek to Piedmont, where the peloton will finish off its Italian visit in Turin on 1 July.
After leaving the gorgeous Florence on the opening day’s racing, the trek through Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna leading to the seaside finale in Rimini will pit the peloton against a total altitude gain of 3,700 metres, an uncharacteristically rude awakening for the peloton.
Along the way, the San Marino climb will add the microstate to the list of 14 countries that have hosted the Grande Boucle. The next day, starting from the station in Cesenatico, the final resting place of Marco Pantani, the riders will tuck into another hefty serving of climbs on the road to Bologna, where punchers have long traded blows on the ascent to San Luca in the Giro dell'Emilia-Romagna.
It will then be time for the super-speedsters of the peloton to step on the gas pedal in Turin, the capital of Piedmont, which has also become a prestigious sprint finish from all the Giro d'Italia stage finishes it has hosted.
The first three stages of the 2024 Tour de France:
Saturday, 29 June — Stage 1: Florence > Rimini, 205 km
Sunday, 30 June — Stage 2: Cesenatico > Bologna, 200 km
Monday, 1 July – Stage 3: Piacenza > Turin, 225 km
The Tour de France has a long connection with Italian cyclists, though there has long been a rivalry between the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France to attract the best riders, and Italians often have found it more lucrative to race their home Grand Tour. That is reflected in the winners honour roll, with 69 editions of the Giro taken out by Italians, with just 10 Tours having Italian winners.
They could easily have had the first Tour de France winner however, as Maurice Garin, who hailed from the Aosta Valley, had only held a French passport for two years by the time he won the inaugural edition of the Tour in 1903.
While the triumphant campaigns of extraordinary champions, ranging from Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi to Marco Pantani and Vincenzo Nibali, have marked the century between Ottavio Bottecchia's maiden victory and the start of the Tour in Florence in June 2024, the Italians have been among the most creative riders in the peloton, always ready to put on a show on every terrain.
Even though he never made a concerted effort to survive until the final showdown on the Champs-Élysées, Mario Cipollini became one of the most prolific stage winners of the 1990s, while Claudio Chiappucci claimed the polka-dot jersey twice (1991 and 1992). In more recent years, Vincenzo Nibali is both the most recent Tour de France overall winner (2014) and the most recent stage winner (Stage 20, 2019) for Italy.
The seven Italian winners of the Tour de France:
Ottavio Bottecchia (1924 and 1925)
Gino Bartali (1938 and 1948)
Fausto Coppi (1949 and 1952)
Gastone Nencini (1960)
Felice Gimondi (1965)
Marco Pantani (1998)
Vincenzo Nibali (2014)
It’s set to be a Tour de France that departs from tradition, with the finale of the race a time trial in Nice, with Olympic preparations preoccupying Paris in that period.
You can watch all the action from the Tour de France in Australia live and free on SBS and SBS On Demand.
