How many tourists among those who will look out over the Arno this afternoon from Ponte Vecchio towards Ponte alle Grazie will be able to identify the 176 little colored men in a pedaling parade between Palazzo Vecchio and the Lungarno? From Grand Depart the old man abroad Tour de France remembers twenty-five and very glorious ones but the three kilometers of Florentine walkway from the Sala dei Cinquecento to Piazzale Michelangelo fear no comparison.
From Saturday to Tuesday the Grande Boucle will annex, for the first time in its 111 editions, 704 kilometers of Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont in a dream born ten years ago and achieved with a transversal political alliance and a large economic investment that filled the even capacious hotels of Florence, Rimini, Bologna and Turin to capacity.
The Tour of the play-off between Pogacar and Vingegaard
It won’t be just any Tour, the first in Italy. It will be the play-off Tour after two victories each Tadej Pogacarwhich comes from an overwhelming success at the Giro d’Italia, and Jonas Vingegaard, the only one to have defeated, indeed almost humiliated, the Slovenian in 2022 and 2023 and who will be at the start just three months (and with zero races in his legs) after the accident at the Tour of the Basque Country in which he almost left us skin. How the Dane’s body, injured by a deep pneumothorax and with broken collarbone and ribs, can react to a probable sprint start (the Florence-Rimini race is immediately very tough) remains to be seen. Furthermore, while Pogacar’s Uae appears stellar (with Ayuso, Almeida and Adam Yates) the former invincible Visma has lost Vingo’s best lieutenant, Sepp Kuss, brought down by a late and violent Covid.
The six stars pointing to victory
Analysts explain that, between injuries and tactical choices, the Tour will be the first meeting in a year between the six planetary stars of current cycling: we have already talked about two, the others are the world champion Van der Poel, his predecessor Evenepoelthe growling one Van Aert And Primoz Roglic who, free from the constraints of Visma, would like to win the Tour that he lost in the unfortunate last kilometers of the last time trial four years ago. It will be a Tour in search of a new white jersey for the best youngster after almost five years of Pogacarian monopoly (the French dream of baby Lenny Martinez) and wants to lull the crazy dream of Mark Cavendish39 years old, — the oldest competing with Morkov and Fuglsang — who is looking for that 35th victory in the sprint that will allow him to break away Merckx and become unattainable.
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