The toughest sporting event in the world, the Tour de France, is in full swing after kicking off on Sunday, June 29, in Florence, Italy.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) moved into the race lead with a daring attack on the steep slopes of the San Luca climb in Bologna on stage 2, but has defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike), Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) tied on time with him, while and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) lost 21 seconds.
Stage 3 will see a huge fight to take the maillot jaune as well as the stage win, so don't miss a minute.
The Tour de France is free to air on ITVX (UK) and SBS On Demand (AUS). Away from home? You can watch free from anywhere using a VPN.
Dates: June 29-July 21
Free streams: SBS on Demand (Australia), ITV4 (UK), S4C (Wales)
USA: Max
Canada: FloBikes
UK: Discovery+, ITV4, S4C
Australia: SBS
Watch anywhere: Try NordVPN, 100% risk-free
The star quartet will be supported by a host of big names, including Sepp Kuss, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease A Bike), Juan Ayuso, João Almeida, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Jai Hindley and Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe).
They'll all be joined at the start by the cream of the crop of the international peloton, including a host of other GC rivals such as Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Enric Mas (Movistar), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), and Ineos Grenadiers quartet Egan Bernal, Carlos Rodríguez, Tom Pidcock, and Geraint Thomas.
Elsewhere, look out for sprinters and Classics men including Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), and Alpecin-Deceuninck pairing Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel.
How to watch the Tour de France for free
The 2024 Tour de France will be aired for free in Australia on SBS on Demand, in the UK by ITV4, and in Wales by S4C.
If you live or are on holiday in any of these countries then enjoy the month of racing with no subscription fees to pay. However, if you're away from home on holiday during the racing then it's possible to keep up with the racing without resorting to shelling out for a local streaming subscription.
A VPN could solve your problem, and we have all the information on how to watch the action using a VPN below.
How to watch the Tour de France in the USA & Canada
NBC hold the broadcasting rights for the Tour de France in the USA. The race will be broadcast live on NBC, as well as the network's streaming service, Peacock TV.
FloBikes will air the Tour de France in Canada. An annual subscription will set you back $29.99/month or $150/year.
Viewers in the USA can watch the Tour live via the network, while highlights and on-demand streams will also be available.
Peacock TV offers a seven-day free trial for those who want to try before you buy. A full subscription to the service starts from $4.99 per month.
NBC is available via cable plans and, if you're a cord-cutter, you can watch the network via Hulu ($7.99 per month with a 30-day free trial), DirecTV (from $64.99 per month with a five-day free trial), and FuboTV (from $74.99 per month with a seven-day free trial).
How to watch the Tour de France in the UK
In the UK, the Tour de France will be aired free to air on TV ITV4, and Welsh-language channel S4C as well as via Eurosport and Discovery+.
A 'standard' subscription to Discovery+, which includes Eurosport's cycling coverage, will set you back £6.99 per month or £59.99 per year. The package includes year-round cycling streams as well as other live sports, including snooker, tennis, motorsports, the Paris Olympic Games, and more.
A premium subscription, which includes all that plus TNT Sports (Premier League, Champions League and Europa League football plus rugby, wrestling, UFC, and MotoGP), costs an additional £29.99 per month.
How to watch the Tour de France around the world
In Australia, national broadcaster SBS will carry live Tour de France coverage.
For a local feel and full French-language coverage of the race, head to France TV Around Europe, broadcasters include ARD in Germany, Sporza and RTBF in Belgium, Rai in Italy, and RTVE in Spain.
Watch live cycling on any streams
If you are outside of your home region and need to access your live streaming services to watch the action, you may find your access to be geo-restricted.
In this case, a VPN service will come in handy, allowing your computer to pretend it's home and let you log into your streaming accounts to catch all of the racing action.
Our colleagues at TechRadar thoroughly tested several VPN services and came up with a few great recommendations below.
There are a couple other very good options that are safe, reliable and offer good bandwidth for streaming sports. Check out two other top options below - ExpressVPN and the best budget option, Surfshark.
