The 111th Tour de France will be held in Italy in 2024, with a grande parle in Florence and a stage honoring former winners Gino Bartali, Riccardo Nencini, Marco Pantani, Ottavio Bottecchia, and Fausto Coppi.

Bottecchia was the first Italian to win the Tour de France, and 2024 will mark the 100th anniversary of his victory.

The Tour de France has visited Italy many times, but has never started in Italy. Thanks to an estimated 10 million euro donation by the regions of Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, and Piedmont, the 2024 Grand Boucle will include three stages in Italy and a start in Pinerolo on the fourth stage before heading to France via the Alps.

According to a detailed report by La Gazzetta dello Sport, the 2024 Tour de France will also feature a unique finish, with Nice expected to host the final stage instead of Paris.

The French capital will host the 2024 Olympic Games, making it impossible to hold the traditional final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs-Elysées a few days before the opening ceremony. Sunday, and the Paris Olympics are scheduled between July 26 and August 11.

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme will visit Italy in 2020 to negotiate the Grand Départ, and in recent weeks race staff have been visiting each stage location to assess logistics.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the opening stage will start in Florence's Piazzale Michelangelo, a 190-km road stage that will pass through Ponte a Emma, the birthplace of Gino Bartali, the 1938 and 1945 Tour winner The road stage will take the riders up the Apennine Mountains to the finish line. The stage then climbs up the Apennines and finishes on the Adriatic coast in Rimini, Romagna.

The second stage starts in Cesenatico, the birthplace of Marco Pantani, and climbs through the hills to finish in central Bologna after 200 km of racing, with a possible climb to Barberino di Mugello in memory of 1960 winner Gastone Nencini. There is also a possibility of climbing to Barberino di Mugello in memory of Gastone Nencini, the 1960 winner.

Stage 3 will be from Modena to Piacenza, another hilly road stage like the stage to Sestola won by American Joe Dombrowski in the 2021 Giro d'Italia. The region is known as Italy's food valley for its production of cured ham and Parmigiano cheese.

After moving west to Piedmont, the Tour de France will depart Italy from Pinerolo, which recalls Fausto Coppi's legendary breakaway in the 1949 Tour de France. Coppi was the first rider to complete the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France double in 1949, a feat he also accomplished in 1952.

Prudhomme is expected to name Italy as the host of the 2024 Grande Pearl when the full itinerary for the 2023 Grande Pearl is announced in Paris in late October.