It had never happened in the previous 112 editions of the Grande Boucle: France, Spain and Italy remain without stage wins. It had never happened and it is evidently a reflection of the times: new nations that have taken up increasingly more space over the years, cycles that have closed and have not yet reopened, talents that struggle to emerge, hopes that follow one another and that so far have not found an outlet.

Obviously this is not the place to analyze the reasons - obviously very different - for this triple setback for countries that have written great pages in cycling history.

For now we stick to the statistics with France remaining empty-handed for the third time in history after 1926 and 1999. Spain has been stuck with the stage wins of Pello Bilbao and Carlos Rodriguez (the great missing man of Iberian cycling) from 2023, while Italy in the last 10 years has celebrated only three stage wins, signed by Nibali in 2019 and Milan twice last year at Laval and Valence.