(Florence) First reconnaissance, press conferences and presentation of the teams: two days before the start, the Tour de France riders get to the heart of the matter on Thursday in Florence, cradle of the Renaissance which has become the provisional capital of cycling.
Under a hazy sky, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, who shared the last four editions, left their hotel mid-morning, under the eye of numerous photographers, to go and scout part of the route of the first stage on Saturday between the Tuscan city and Rimini.
In the afternoon they will travel to the center of Florence for a press conference at the Palazzo Vecchio, a fortress-palace of absolute splendor, alongside the other main stars, Remco Evenepoel, Primoz Roglic, Wout Van Aert or the world champion Mathieu van der Poel.
They will then parade to the equally sublime Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks the city on the other side of the Arno River, for the team presentation from 6:30 p.m.
This 111th edition marks the first departure from Italy in the history of the Tour de France, a hundred years after Ottavio Bottecchia’s first Italian victory in 1924. It will end, after three weeks of fighting and suffering, on July 21 at Nice, and not in Paris as usual, because of the Olympic Games.
Tadej Pogacar, winner in 2020 and 2021, is the big favorite, as much because of the sparkling form he is displaying this year as because of the problems encountered by his main rivals.
“My form is even better than expected. I have never felt so good on a bike,” warned the leader of the powerful UAE team on Wednesday.
Dethroned in the last two years by Jonas Vingegaard, “Pogi” aspires to become the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to complete the Giro-Tour double in the same year.
He fulfilled the first part of his contract by crushing the competition at the Tour of Italy, won with almost ten minutes in advance.
“I expect Tadej to be almost unattainable. What he showed at the Giro was impressive without him having to dig deep into his reserves. He will be the man to beat,” Remco Evenepoel said on Wednesday.
The Belgian, who will be making his debut in the Tour, will be one of the main attractions with the ambition of reaching the podium.
It remains to be verified whether he has fully recovered from the terrible fall at the beginning of April at the Tour of the Basque Country which caused him fractures to his collarbone and shoulder blade and took away two other big favorites, Vingegaard and Roglic.
Of the three, it was the Dane, two-time outgoing winner, who suffered the most damage. Hospitalized for 12 days for fractures to his collarbone, ribs, and a pneumothorax, Vingegaard only got back on a bike on May 7 and has not raced competitively since.
And he has also just lost his precious lieutenant in the mountains, the American Sepp Kuss, who has not recovered sufficiently from COVID-19, which has affected several riders in recent days.
After having dominated the event for the last two years, his Visma-Lease a bike team, pursued by an incredible succession of glitches since the start of the season, promises to be less strong this time than the UAE armada and perhaps even Roglic’s Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe.
The Slovenian, also involved in the accident in the Basque Country but who escaped without fracture, will be supported in particular by the Australian Jai Hindley and the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov.
“Donning the yellow jersey is the goal,” declared the Dauphiné winner on Wednesday in Salzburg during the presentation of Red Bull as the team’s new sponsor.
