PARIS, France – The 2024 Tour de France will set off from Florence for the first Grand Départ in Italy in its history, the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Italy is the only neighboring country to have never hosted a Grand Départ since 1903, the year the event was created.
Questioned by AFP, ASO, the company organizing the race, declined to comment.
According to the Italian sports daily, which mentions the intervention of public and private investors to finance the operation, the event will start on June 29, 2024 from Florence, the city of “campionissimo” Gino Bartali (twice winner of the Tour before and after the Second World War), for a first stage ending in Rimini on the shores of the Adriatic.
The second stage will connect Cesenatico, the city of another former winner (Marco Pantani, in 1998) to Bologna before a third stage also announced in Emilia-Romagna near Modena and Piacenza and the start of the fourth stage in Pinerolo (Piedmont ) for a follow-up on French territory.
The Italian newspaper also assures that the Tour would also arrive for the first time in its history in a city other than Paris, which is to kick off the Summer Olympics less than a week later (July 26 to 11 august). The venue chosen for the conclusion of this 111th edition would be Nice.
