The magic of the Tour de France. The emotion turns Florence yellow: “What a show”

Florence, 28 June 2024 – The sun kisses the city far and wide Piazzale Michelangelochic terrace of Firenzewhere young and old go crazy with anticipatory emotion – yes, forgive us for the cliché, but the magic of the bicycles is to make the kids’ eyes widen with wonder, as well as the old people who stand there with cameras that didn’t exactly come out of the shop the day before yesterday… – waiting for the spectacular climb/parade of the athletes of the Tour de France.

The start of the race cycling most famous in the world on the banks of the Arno attracts a battalion of two-wheel aficionados from every corner of Tuscany. But clapping their hands and waving the Danish, now the French, now the Belgian flag are also the many tourists who have already invaded the Tuscan capital. “Fantastic, fantastic”, says a young woman, almost in ecstasy, perched on a barrier along the Viale dei Colli. In a yellow-hued city where even the Florentines – and yes, this is news – give up sulking about parking bans and traffic diversions, the 176 cyclists who will officially compete only from tomorrow reciprocate everyone’s applause with smiles.

“Mamma mia, what a sight this is” the champion lets out, amazed. Mark Cavendish took to the stage in the Piazzale, on the eve of the Tour in which he is aiming for victory in stage number 35 to beat the record, only equaled so far, of the ‘cannibal’ Eddy Merckxfor those in the know the greatest of all time in the saddle. But Florence is the home of perhaps the most beloved cyclist of all time, together with his rival and friend Fausto Coppi, namely Gino ‘Ginettaccio’ Bartali. From here his native Ponte a Ema, a hamlet on the outskirts of the city, cannot be seen but the presence of the righteous man among the Nations, raised on dust, muscles and sweat in an Italy that no one here can even imagine, hovers like an angel without wings but with pedals.

The grumpy man would certainly have puffed out his chest Bartali, for whom ‘good is done but it is said’, seeing the athletes climb, once they set off from Palazzo Vecchio, the gentle curves under the square. The eight shuttle buses of Autolinee Toscane – the local transport company which has its parent company in France (Ratp group) – travel non-stop from the Arno River to the Florentine terrace and unload swarms of enthusiasts. “Come on grandma, they’ll be here soon…” a boy smiles at an elderly lady, more excited than him, who is fanning herself with her hat and looking down the Arno at what are still just colored dots. They will cover a total of just three kilometres, more than half of which is uphill, which for similar athletes is roughly the effort a normal Christian makes to tie a shoe.

But from tomorrow onwards things get serious. The 22 teams and 176 riders who, from Saturday, will battle for twenty-one stages and a whopping 3,492 kilometres and 21 stages. Departure from the Cascine Park for the stage dedicated to Gino Bartali and Gastone Nencini – arrival in Nice, passing through Rimini, Marco Pantani’s Cesenatico, Bologna. And from the Piedmontese lands of Fausto Coppi with arrival in Turin, for what is the first time of the Grand Depart in Italy.

“Finally the Tour has righted a mistake, never having started from Italy” the words of an enthusiast Christian Prudhomme, director of the race, according to which the Grand Départ from Florence “is the way to honor the great champions who made cycling and the Tour great”. The governor beamed Eugenio Giani: “The Tour is a great showcase for all of Tuscany” and “it is a source of great joy for the city which can legitimately claim the first road race in history, the Florence-Pistoia of 1870”. In the ceremony, broadcast live worldwide, lots of disco music and, for the locals, even a flash homage to Pupo with his unforgettable song. Florence Santa Maria Novella.