The 2024 Tour de France: Preview and how to watch
Who can challenge Pogačar and how high can Derek Gee fly?
Photo by:
Sirotti
Oh, boy, it’s Tour de France time again! On Saturday, June 29, the 2024 Grande Boucle will take off in Florence, Italy and get down to serious business straight away. The biggest race in the world is starting early, finishing outside of Paris for the first time ever as to not crowd the Olympic Games, and ending with a time trial for the first time since 1989 when Greg LeMond chrono-ed the title away from Laurent Fignon. Canadian Cycling Magazine takes a look at the 111th edition as well as a guide on how to watch it.
How to watch the 2024 Tour de France with a VPN
A popular way to watch the Tour is by using A VPN (Virtual Private Network). It works by securely encrypting your internet connection, routing it through a remote server operated by a VPN provider. Once connected, you’re all set to enjoy the Tour De France hassle-free from wherever you are in the world by following these simple steps:
1. Sign up for a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)
2. Download the app to your device of choice
3. Open up the app and connect to a server in a location that is offering free streaming of the 2024 Tour de France
4. Connect to your preferred streaming platform like SBS or ITVX
5. Watch the 2024 Tour de France from anywhere in the world!
Broadcasters of the Tour de France across the world
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in the UK (ITV, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in Australia (SBS, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in France (France TV, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in Belgium (RTBF/VRT, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in Spain (RTVE, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in Italy (RAI, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in the Netherlands (NPO, which is free)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in the US (NBC Sports and Peacock, $5.99 USD/month with ads)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in Canada (Flobikes.com, $30/month)
– How to watch 2024 Tour de France in the UK (Eurosport, £6.99/month)
About ExpressVPN
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The Tour de France course
Week 1: On June 29, the Italian leg begins with a climby affair of 206 km from Florence to Rimini. The climbs are shorter the next day but the sprinters might not get their chance until Stage 3 into Turin. France arrives the next day with a bang, as the Col du Galibier crests 19 km from the finish line in Valloire. After two more stages that favour the fast men, Stage 7 is a 25-km time trial with a climb in the middle. Before the first rest day, Stage 9 offers up 14 sectors of gravel totaling 32.2 km along 199 km around Troyes.
Week 2 of the 111th edition heads south to take on the Pyrenees, with action in the Massif Central along the way. The first major summit finish is Stage 14, finishing on Pla d’Adet after climbing the Col du Tourmalet and the Hourquette d’Ancizan in just 152 km. Stage 15 before the last rest day keeps up the pressure with another summit finish after 198 km and five climbs, the concluding one Plateau de Beille, 15 km of 7.9 percent.
Week 3 will be all about the Alps. Stage 17 has three main climbs, including the 8.4 percent Col du Noyer cresting 12 km from the finish at Super-Dévoluy. Stage 18 is no pushover, but it doesn’t have a dynamite summit finish like Stage 19’s conclusion on Isola 2000, 16.1 km of 7.1 percent. The final mountain day sets four ascents evenly across 133 km, Col de la Couillole the summit finish. The concluding time trial on July 21 starts in Monaco, climbing the gradual La Turbie (8.1 km at 5.6 percent) and then the steeper Col d’Eze (1.6 km at 8.1 percent) before a long but technical descent to Nice.
The Contenders
Back in March the cycling world was squealing with anticipation of the Drawing of the Four, a battle royale between the best Grand Tour riders in the world: Jonas Vingegaard, his former teammate Primož Roglič, Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel. Giddyup!
But a crash in a corner of late-April’s Itzulia Basque Country took on the proportions of a disaster. Among the victims were Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Roglič, worst to least injured respectively. The next month, Pogačar ripped up the Giro d’Italia on his way to winning pink in a way that effectively extinguished the prospect of the battle royale.
There’s no way that anyone with any sense could say that the Pogačar is an absolute lock for the yellow jersey, bet the house on him. After all, if the guy tests positive for COVID-19, whether he’s feeling weak and queasy or skipping about with blithe joy, his race is over. And it’s well known what a crash can do to a Grand Tour bid–just ask Steven Kruijswijk.
However, Pogačar is the runaway favourite, the man likely be the first Giro-Tour winner since Marco Pantani in 1998. Some doubt that it’s possible to peak a month apart in modern cycling, but it’s clear that the Slovenian in a special athlete. His team is absurdly powerful, and after their one-two in the Tour de Suisse, Adam Yates and João Almeida make another Grand Tour team podium sweep possible only a year on from Visma’s one-two-three at the Vuelta a Espana.
Obviously, Jonas Vingegaard’s form two months after the Itzulia Basque Country crash left him with serious injuries is one of the biggest stories of the 111th edition. The two-time champion will not be in his best shape to go for the natural hat trick. Sepp Kuss is not showing great form either. Visma-Lease a Bike’s best chance is American Matteo Jorgenson, Paris-Nice champion and dude who nearly nicked the Critérium du Dauphiné from Roglič in the race’s last three kilometres. Visma-LAB’s change kit for the Tour is a blue-based Rennaisance model.
Discover our Tour de France jersey: https://t.co/Ouli38Exvw pic.twitter.com/R7HTctRgQm
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) June 20, 2024
Roglič looked good winning two stages of the Dauphiné, but if the final climb was a kilometre longer, he would have lost the race. He has solid support in Aleksandr Vlasov and Jai Hindley. The shadow of the yellow jersey shifting to Pogacar on the 2020 edition’s penultimate stage looms large in the Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe rider’s psyche.
Evenepoel, although not as badly hurt in the Itzulia Basque Country disaster as Vingegaard, was hurt worse than Roglič both both the Basque wreck and in another crash at the Dauphiné, and his seventh in the latter race revealed that. Evenepoel fell sick last week and missed the Belgian nationals. With Mikel Landa in his corner he’ll be a podium threat.
In both the Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse Ineos placed fourth via Carlos Rodriguez and Egan Bernal respectively. Tom Pidcock was seventh in Switzerland. Geraint Thomas came third in the Giro. All this will encourage the Grenadiers to run a Movistar-style Trident with an extra prong–a pitchfork if you will. However, even with all this muscle, they still aren’t as strong as UAE-Emirates. Expect stage wins and another GC fourth place.
Romain Bardet, Enric Mas, Pello Bilbao, Richard Carapaz, David Gaudu, Felix Gall and Simon Yates will entertain us in the final week scrapping it out to either get into or move up the top-10.
The Canadians
On Friday Isreal-Premier Tech released its Tour lineup and for the second consecutive year, three Canadians made the team. It had been known for a while that that Derek Gee and Hugo Houle will race, but Guillaume Boivin was added late. Gee’s exemplary performance in the Critérium du Dauphiné blew minds, as the 2023 Giro swashbuckler became the second Canadian to lead the prestigious French race and the first Canadian to podium.
In his first Tour de France, Gee is free to seek stage wins for IPT, but considering how strong his climbing and time trialing were in the eight-day stage race, and how closely marked he’ll be while trying to break away, the Canadian should be his team’s protected rider.
Only one of three Canadians to take a Tour stage, Houle will be looking to extend the Canuck winning streak to three editions.
A non-GC 111th Tour de France storyline to look forward to: Sir Mark of Cavendish is still trying to own the most Tour stage wins record outright instead of sharing it with Eddy Merckx. Another: world champion Mathieu van der Poel is in the house.
This story was presented by ExpressVPN
