NOSThe first stage of the 2024 Tour de France is a ride from Florence to Rimini.
NOS Wielrennen•vandaag, 05:56
Forget the European Football Championship, the Tour de France starts on Saturday. And there is no question of a quiet first day to test the legs. The opening stage from Florence to the seaside resort of Rimini is, according to Tom Dumoulin, “one of the toughest first stages we have perhaps ever seen.”
Course builder Thierry Gouvenou proudly describes his route for Saturday as “a rollercoaster ride through the Apennines”. It has a height of 3,700 metres. That is four hundred more than in last year’s first stage in the Basque Country, where brothers Adam and Simon Yates rode away together in the final.
“A seriously tough stage,” said Dumoulin. “Especially from San Leo onwards it’s a series of climbs.”
The top of the San Leo is thirty kilometres from the finish in Rimini. After the top of the Montemaggio – which we still know from the World Championship won by Julian Alaphilippe in Imola (2020) – the riders dive across the border to San Marino, where the eponymous final climb (7.1 kilometres at 4.8 percent) awaits.
Anyone who wants to win in Rimini will also need to have good descending skills, because after the summit in San Marino there is a steep descent and then a few more kilometres on a slightly descending line to the finish line.
NOS Profile of the first stage
With the seven climbs (three of the second, four of the third category) there are 23 mountain points ready. That could be a goal for many adventurers. But the question is whether they will get the space.
It could well be that the favorites immediately press the accelerator. “This could immediately be a ride for Tadej Pogacar to test the competition,” thinks Tom Dumoulin, analyst at NOS again this Tour.
“Because I think they immediately want to see what Jonas Vingegaard’s legs are like. Where is he, how good is he? That information is completely unclear at the moment. If I were UAE, I would try. Not necessarily because of that to win a stage and immediately get into yellow, but above all to see: how good is Vingegaard actually?”
Michael Boogerd, who will be at the finish as an analyst, knows the region. “There is always extra pressure on the first stage of the Tour de France. That makes it very intense. It is really tough, with a lot of twists and turns. This is Marco Pantani’s training course.”
Tour de France at NOS
The first stage can be followed live from the neutralization at 11.55 hrs on NOS on NPO1, in the NOS app and on NOS.nl. From 14.00 hrs Radio Tour in the air.
The Evening Stage can be seen every day around 22:00. If there is football at the European Championship, The Evening Stage can be seen on NPO 3, when there is no football on NPO 1. And of course you can always watch via the livestream on NOS.nl and in the NOS app.
On Saturday, Tom Dumoulin, Frans Maassen (visma-Lease a Bike team leader) and Italy expert Renate Verhoofstad will sit at the table with Dione de Graaff.
The opening weekend of the Tour is indeed an ode to the 1998 Italian Tour winner, who was born in Cesenatico (Sunday’s starting point) and who lost his life in Hotel Le Rose in Rimini in 2004.
Twenty years ago, Jean Nelissen made the following report from Italy.
2004 | Italy mourns the death of cycling hero Marco Pantani
Pantani is the last rider to have managed to win both the Giro and the Tour in the same year. That is exactly Pogacar’s goal in 2024.
Whether he will succeed will only be clear in three weeks. On day one it is especially important for the favorites to stay intact. Stef Clement: “I always think in the Tour that you can reasonably gauge on day one what the course of the Tour will be like. The tone will be set in the first weekend. Let’s hope that no one goes overboard already. Last year we had Richard Carapaz and Enric Mas falling on day one.”
At the finish, like every stage this Tour, 10, 6 and 4 bonus seconds are available for the first three riders. The finish is expected between 5:34 PM and 6:05 PM.
2024-06-29 03:56:02
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