Florence celebrates 100-day countdown to Tour de France’s ‘Grand Depart’

FLORENCE, Italy: With just 100 days to go before cycling’s Tour de France sets off, organisers described the 2024 Grand Depart in Florence as “a dream come true”.

At the foot of the Palazzo Vecchio the director of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme, savoured the dream coming true “in an open-air museum”.

This year marks the 111th running of the Tour de France with the peloton embarking from Italy for the first time in its history on June 29.

“Seeing the banners and the countdown clocks for the Tour de France here, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, an open-air museum, is powerful,” Prudhomme said.

The fact no Italian city has ever hosted the event was described as an incongruity given some of the great champions in the race are Italian such as Marco Pantani, Vincenzo Nibali, Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali.

Florence came close 10 years ago to hosting the start but Bradley Wiggins’ victory in 2012 pushed organisers to favour the UK, thus putting the Tuscan candidacy on hold.

Florentine mayor Dario Nardella however reached out, in the middle of Covid confinement, sending a text message to Prudhomme saying: “Florence so beautiful and so deserted. I have not forgotten the dream of the Grand Depart.”

Celebrating the countdown, Florence is draped in the Tour de France yellow and even the Palazzo Vecchio was lit-up in the colour worn by the race leader.

“It’s deeply satisfying, we feel a great sense of pride,” said twotime Tour stage winner Daniele Bennati, now coach of the Italian national team. “I would have dreamed of taking this start when I was a rider,” he said.