The festivities for the Grand Départ of the 110th Tour de France returned Thursday for the first time since 1992 in Basque Country in Spain, with Bilbao hosting the live team presentation.
Each of the 22 teams at this year’s Tour promenaded on their bicycles along the Nervión river to the stage, surrounded by the immense backdrop of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Despite dark skies and rain, a large crowd gathered to welcome the 176 riders and enjoy various musical and artistic performances during the ceremony.
Team Bahrain Victorious was the first team to follow the yellow-painted path to the stage. A special tribute was made, including a moment of silence, to honour their teammate Gino Mäder of Switzerland, who died on stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse, noting their theme #rideforGino.
Huge roars erupted from the crowd for two local riders on Bahrain Victorious, Pello Bilbao and Mikel Landa, who is from the province of Alava where stage 2 will begin. Landa ridden the Tour five times, and finished fourth overall in his last Tour appearance in 2020. Bilbao, who is from the town of Guernica that will be passed twice on stage 1, finished ninth in his last Tour in 2021.
Five other riders from the Basque country also received loud applause - Omar Fraile and Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Alex Aranburu and Gorka Izagirre (Movistar).
A majority of the teams donned Tour de France emblazoned Basque-styled hats, boinas or txapelas, as they took the stage, which appealed to the Spanish crowd, but it was the catwalk-style unveil of new team gear, equipment and branding that earned the most attention.
Updated graphics on kits have been the trend for many teams in past years. This year saw bigger branding debuts as teams used the big stage at the Grand Tour to launch significant reformations with new sponsors.
Once unveiling new kits at the Tour de France, two teams will ride the rest of 2023 with new title sponsors. Team DSM will feature new branding for a top sponsor, chemical company Fermenich, and change its name to Team dsm-fermenich. Trek-Segafredo transforms to Lidl-Trek, the supermarket now a title sponsor. Lidl-Trek will maintain the dark blue jerseys with a red banner on the chest, and add the yellow Lidl mark on the chest and sleeves.
Riding the Tour for the first time, Uno-X will go from a red and yellow jersey to a red jersey with a yellow band, adding REMA 1000 to the top left chest and the circular logo of the supermarket on the sleeves.
Bahrain Victorious swapped the signature red and orange colours for a white jersey and teal accents. The same colour pattern will be used on the team’s Merida bikes. Movistar also switched from navy blue to a predominantly white kit known as ‘iceberg’.
Intermarché-Circus-Wanty has more subtle switch out, introducing neon yellow across the shoulders of their jerseys at the Tour.
Jumbo-Visma incorporates a night-time portrayal of a star-filled sky on its now-predominantly black jerseys, with a map of France emblazoned on the centre of the chest. Bora-Hansgrohe added the names of riders who contributed to the team’s history in its past 10 years, which are scattered across a new shade of green. Astana Qazaqstan will ride in a special-edition kit with a marble pattern of gold veins on a blue background which replicates minerals in precious stones.
Israel-Premier Tech also updates its look for the next three weeks promoting tourism in the team’s home country. The front of the jersey will show a map of the 1,000km Israel National Trail, a walking and bike trail, with the white, blue and orange colour bands representing geographic regions of the trail, from mountains to coastline to desert.
Click or swipe through the gallery above to see the teams presentation of the 2023 Tour de France.
