The Tour de France will start in Italy for the first time ever in 2024.

It will begin in Florence in a year marking the centenary of Ottavio Bottecchia's Tour de France win, which was the first by an Italian, in 1924.

The first three stages will take place in Italy, while the race will finish in Nice in another first.

The conclusion will be outside of the Paris region for the first time in the race's history because the Olympics start days later in the French capital.

"The Tour has started from all the countries bordering France," said Tour director Christian Prudhomme.

"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."

The 2023 Tour de France will start in Bilbao, Spain, on 1 July and finish in Paris on 23 July.