Jul 29, 2007, 17:09 GMT
Paris - Alberto Contador of Spain on Sunday won the 94th Tour de France by one of the smallest margins of victory in the history of the race.
Spaniard Alberto Contador (C) of Discovery Channel Team celebrates in the yellow jersey of the overall leader on the podium after the 20th stage of the 94th Tour de France cycling race in Paris, France, 29 July 2007. The 20th and final stage of the Tour de France 2007 led the riders over 146 kilometres from Marcoussis to the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Contador won the 94th Tour de France. EPA/ERIC LALMAND
The 24-year-old rider for the Discovery Channel team beat Australian Cadel Evans by 23 seconds, with his American team-mate Levi Leipheimer in third place, only 31 seconds adrift.
Evans is the first Australian to finish in the top three at the Tour.
The smallest-ever winning margin of victory in the Tour was eight seconds, by American Greg Lemond over French rider Laurent Fignon, in 1989.
In a race plagued by reports of doping, it was almost fitting that Contador inherited the race lead - and, it turned out, the championship - when former race leader Michael Rasmussen was booted out of the Tour for having lied to avoid two out-of-competition drug tests.
The Spaniard ensured his victory in Saturday's time trial, in which he finished fifth. Sunday's closing stage was, as is traditional, a ceremonial parade that ended with a mass sprint on the Champs Elysees in the French capital.
It was won by Italian Daniele Bennati, for his second stage victory of this year's Tour.
He raced the 146 kilometres from Marcoussis, which included nine circuits of the Champs Elysees, in 3 hours 51:03 minutes, a relatively leisurely pace of 37.91 kph.
This edition of the race was beset by a number of controversies.
In addition to the Rasmussen affair, pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan tested positive for an illegal blood transfusion, Italian Christian Moreni was found to have used synthetic testosterone and a festering disagreement between Tour organizers and the world governing cycling body UCI broke out into open warfare.
In addition, German Patrik Sinkewitz was revealed after his injury-related withdrawal to have failed a doping test ahead of the Tour.
As a result, Tour officials were already planning big changes for next year's race. Patrice Clerc, head of the Amaury Sport Organization, which runs the race, was quoted by the web site of the daily L'Equipe as saying that he was 'seriously considering' opening the field to national teams next year.
'I think that a combination, a mixed formula, is possible,' Clerc said. 'Part of the line-up of teams selected would be reserved for national teams.... Perhaps that is the way to go.'
In addition, to fight the threat of doping and the suspicions that continue to linger over the race, Clerc suggested that he could foresee 'biological monitoring for every rider, with an individual passport established by the rider's team' and checked by an outside anti-doping body.
'That would be a big advance,' he said. But he warned: 'There will never be zero risk.'
But the news from the Tour was not all bad. Contador and the winner of the King of the Mountains title, Mauricio Soler of Colombia, are both only 24 years old and seem to have bright futures in the sport.
And the winner of the sprint titel, Tom Boonen of Belgium, is only 26 and seems ready to dominate the sprint competitions, as retiring six-time Tour sprint champion Erik Zabel once did.
But the Tour de France is badly in need of rehabilitation.
In a survey made public Sunday by L'Equipe, only 29 per cent of respondents in France said they were interested in the race, down from 38 per cent in 2005. The reason for the steep drop is doping, said many of the 888 people over the age of 15 who took part in the survey.
This makes clear that if its organizers do not succeed in regaining the confidence of the public, the Tour de France may be nearing the finish line.
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