Starting the 2024 Tour de France in Florence will fix an “incongruity” and celebrate Italian cycling, race director Christian Prudhomme told AFP on Wednesday as he confirmed the first-ever Italian Grand Depart.

The 2024 Tour will start with three stages in Italy and, because of the Paris Olympics, will end in Nice, the first time since 1905 that it will not reach its climax on the streets of the capital.

“The Tour has started from all the countries bordering France,” said Prudhomme who is in Italy until Friday to present the 26th Grand Depart from outside French borders, the third in a row after Copenhagen in 2022 and Bilbao in 2023.

“It has even started six times from the Netherlands, which has no common border with France. But it has never started from Italy.

“It’s an incongruity that will disappear.”

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