The Grand Départ Florence Emilia-Romagna 2024 is getting closer and closer!

Less than two months remain and anticipation is rising for a historic event: for the first time in over a century, the Tour de France will start from Italy. From June 29th to July 1st, 2024 – Florence and Emilia-Romagna, along with Piedmont, will host the Grand Boucle through territories where cycling boasts great traditions and popular roots, and great champions like Gino Bartali, Marco Pantani, Fausto Coppi, all 100 years after Ottavio Bottecchia’s victory, the first Italian to conquer the Tour podium in 1924.

The Tour de France in Italy will therefore be a tribute to a country where cycling is one of the most beloved sports. And to some champions who were born in these lands. Like Marco Pantani, the best young rider of the Tour in 1994 and 1995, and winner in 1998, with the triumph on the Galibier, the same year he had also won the Giro d’Italia. The Cesenatico-Bologna stage is dedicated to Pantani, starting from the town on the Romagna coast where the Pirate lived and which still proudly preserves his memory.

And it will arrive at the Colle di San Luca, already the scene of the Grande Partenza of the Giro d’Italia in 2019, after retracing part of the circuit of the Imola World Championships in 2020, evocative sections that enchanted viewers from every country.

And with Pantani, Gino Bartali, winner of two Tour de France in 1938 and 1948, and Gastone Nencini on the podium in 1960. The Florence-Rimini stage is dedicated to the two Tuscan champions, with the passage in front of the Bartali museum in Ponte a Ema, the place where the great climber was born. To conclude with a tribute to Fausto Coppi, the champion on the Tour podium in 1949 and 1952, who will be celebrated in the Piacenza-Turin stage.

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