Jul 23, 2006, 16:30 GMT
Paris - American Floyd Landis won the 2006 Tour de France on Sunday, one of the closest and most dramatic editions ever of the world's most prestigious cycling event.
US Floyd Landis (Phonak Hearing Systems team) in the yellow jersey of the overall leader drinks champagne during the twentieth stage of the 93rd Tour de France 2006 in Sceaux-Antony, France, Sunday 23 July 2006. EPA/GERO BRELOER
Landis finished 57 seconds ahead of Oscar Pereiro Sio of Spain, with Germany's Andreas Kloeden in third place, 1 minute 29 seconds adrift, and became the third American Tour champion, after three-time winner Greg Lemond and seven-time victor Lance Armstrong.
The 30-year-old Landis, who will have hip replacement surgery later this year, regained the Tour leader's yellow jersey during Saturday's 57-kilometre time trial.
That followed a dramatic last week of racing that saw the leader of the Swiss Phonak team lose 8 minutes to his rivals on Wednesday and make up much of that time a day later in a solo breakaway of more than 130 kilometres.
'Never stop believing,' Landis said in a brief speech at the awards ceremony, in which he also thanked his team-mates.
For the record, the final stage of the Tour - 154.5 kilometres from the Paris suburb of Antony to the Champs Elysees - was won by Norway's Thor Hushovd in a mass sprint to the finish, his second stage win of this Tour.
Hushovd , who rides for the Credit Agricole team, therefore won the first race of the Tour, the prologue, and the last. He was timed in 3 hours 56 minutes 51 seconds, an average speed of 39.14 kph.
Sunday's stage was largely ceremonial, a procession into Paris during which Landis accepted congratulations from the other riders, posed for photographs and drank a little champagne.
Thousands of people lined the route, with the crowds especially numerous along the Champs Elysees, over which the riders passed eight times before crossing a finish line for the 20th and final time of the three-week race.
This 93rd edition of the Tour de France will rank as one of the most exciting ever, with Landis, Pereiro and another Spaniard, Carlos Sastre, within 30 seconds of each other before Saturday's stage began.
So dramatic and changeable was the Tour that French media have described it as 'fou, fou, fou,' (crazy, crazy, crazy). The race leader's yellow jersey changed hands 10 times in the three-week race, and seven different riders wore it at different times.
But the drama actually began 24 hours before the Tour's official start, when nine riders, including pre-race favourites Ivan Basso of Italy and German Jan Ullrich, were dropped from the race because of their reported links to a Spanish doping affair.
That scandal also cost the Tour of Spaniard Francisco Mancebo and Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov - in the latter's case, because so many of his teammates were suspended that his team could not field enough riders - that the race was deprived of the top five finishers in last year's race (including winner Armstrong, who had retired).
Landis was considered one of the favourites for the race, but he did not take over the yellow jersey until stage 11, in the Pyrenees Mountains, when he finished third.
However, he gave the lead back two days later, intentionally, when Pereiro - never considered a title contender - was allowed to take off with a breakaway and finish 30 minutes ahead of the other rivals.
The 28-year-old Pereiro had been meant to assist the leader of his Caisse d'Epargne team, fellow Spaniard Alejandro Valverde, but he was upgraded to team leader after Valverde broke his collarbone in a crash in the third stage, on July 4.
Pereiro lost the lead to Landis on July 18, and then regained it the following day, when the American faltered badly in the mountains.
'I was deeply humiliated, almost in a state of depression,' Landis said of his performance.
The next day, in the last of three stages in the Alps, he attacked early, less than halfway up the first of three big climbs, and took off on what amounted to a furious, all-out solo ride of more than 130 kilometres.
At the end of the stage, Landis had regained most of the time lost the day before, won his first-ever Tour de France stage and secured his place in Tour legend
'I work hard and I never give up,' Landis said of himself.
The Tour was also a success for Pereiro, who battled hard in the final stages, and for German Andreas Kloeden, who finished third, 1 minute 29 seconds behind Landis.
With Ullrich suspended from the Tour and later fired by the team, the 31-year-old Kloeden became leader of the T-Mobile team, which won three Tour stages and the Tour team title.
He will certainly be one of the favourites for next year's Tour de France, at which Landis may or may not participate. He has vowed to fight hard to return from his hip operation.
'If I don't, that's too bad,' he said. 'But I have achieved my dream.'
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Maurice K.SchlabergJul 23rd, 2006 - 22:57:15
It looks to me that crippled sick Americans[our hero's]can beat all the others.
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