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June 27, 12:00 noon.

Florence, Italy, Piazzale Michelangelo.

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A stage dominated by the Tour de France's iconic lemon-yellow color scheme had been set up days earlier and was officially put into use today.

Below the stage, countless road cycling fans from Italy and around the world had gathered to watch.

So many fans had come because, unlike previous years, this year's Tour de France would start in Florence, Italy, for the first time, with the opening three stages all taking place within Italy.

Not until Stage 4 would the riders travel from Pinerolo, Italy, to the Valloire ski resort in Savoy, in the French Alps, officially returning to French territory.

As the host city, Florence naturally had to host all the team presentation ceremonies for this Tour de France during the two days before the race.

All riders from the eighteen UCI WorldTour teams, along with four wildcard Pro teams with high UCI points in the lower tier—Israel–Premier Tech,

Uno-X, Lotto Dstny, and the TotalEnergies team—would take the stage one after another today.

It was Huang Chong's first time competing in the Tour de France. Even though the race was not starting in France but in Italy, a country with an equally long cycling tradition, he could still feel how fanatical all Europeans were about the Tour.

He knew perfectly well that practically everyone in Florence had probably come to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch their presentation.

The rest of the city was likely deserted.

The Tour de France allowed each team to send eight riders, for a total of 176 riders.

Aside from a handful of top riders, such as Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale's Ben O'Connor, who had deliberately been assigned by his team to race this year's Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España in order to avoid