A tasty appetizer before a very rich lunch: the 111th edition of the Tour de France experienced its first official act yesterday afternoon with the presentation of the 176 riders divided into 22 teams. The event was organized by the Cesena group Pubblisole and took place in Florence under the supervision of Stefano Bertolotti and Paolo Mei with the extraordinary participation of Justine Mattera, a true trait d’union with the many foreign fans who followed live or the event on the web. Today, however, it will get serious straight away: the 2024 edition of the Grande Boucle has the Viola Park in Florence as its starting point and consists of a 206 km long section that will end this afternoon in Rimini. Already in the first stage there is no shortage of second and third category climbs to tackle, such as the Tre Faggi Pass, the Forche Pass, the Carnaio Pass and the dreaded Barbotto Pass, then moving on to San Leo, Montemaggio and San Marino to give life on a route that will immediately put the riders at the start to the test. The race will cross Emilia-Romagna again tomorrow with the second stage between Cesenatico and Bologna, the one dedicated entirely to the great Pirate Marco Pantani, and then leave our region on Monday with the Piacenza-Turin, before finally heading towards the France. First approaches of a Tour which, logically speaking, will propose the duel between the multi-title winners Vingegaard and Pogacar, with the Dane who will go in search of the hat trick after the last two victories and the Slovenian who will try to do the same after the seals of 2020 and 2021. In the latter case it would also be a historic Giro-Tour double: the last to achieve it was Marco Pantani in 1998.
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