Posted on 12/21/2022 2:05:44 PM PST by nickcarraway
The Tour de France will start in Italy for the first time in 2024 and the opening three stages will be held there, race organisers said on Wednesday.
Italy gets the honour of hosting the Grand Depart 100 years after Ottavio Bottecchia became the first Italian to win cycling's most prestigious event.
The Tour will start on June 29, with the opening stage from Florence to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. The second stage will be from Cesenatico to Bologna and the third will start in Piacenza and end in Turin.
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They started it in West Berlin in 1987.
When Chris Froom won they started in the UK
Danmark, now Italy?
If they started in Milan and went north, right into the Alps, I’d understand an Italian start.
Can’t wait for all the haters of cycling to start bellyaching over the early coverage and talk about how boring it is.
Who are the pureblood riders?
I have a bunch of old Italian bicycles, and a French one too.
Honestly the French px10 is better.
All my Italian cars have been really high maintenance
They’re still recovering from their World Cup hate.
You get it. Not sure they’ll ever recover from their WC hate.
The Tour de Farce. I wonder which blood doper will win it this year?
Same as always, the one who dopes best without getting caught.
The last TdF winner who was beyond all suspicion was Greg Lemond in 1990. Then Miguel Indurain won the next five "on the trot."
Except Indurain was the classic "plowhorse to racehorse" transformation that characterizes EPO users. He abandoned in 1985 -- his first TdF -- after just four stages. And abandoned again in 1986. Then he came 97th in 1987, 47th in in 1988, 17th in 1989, and 10th in 1990.
And after previously never once having been in contention to win GC, he won five straight starting in 1991. This is, as Lance Pharmstrong would say, "Not normal."
It bears mention that EPO reached the pro peloton probably in 1987 but certainly by 1988.
It also bears mention that after finding himself so much slower than his competition in 1991 and 1992, Greg Lemond went off in search of the undiagnosed malady that was robbing him of his cycling prowess.
There was no direct test for EPO until 1996 but Indurain without doubt was the TdF's first EPO-charged racer.
“They’re still recovering from their World Cup hate.”
What is the World Cup?
Is that some wine tasting competition ?
Sorry, I was a decade off. The EPO test came about in 2006, the year after (the first time) Pharmstrong retired, not in 1996.
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