Tour de France

Joining Contador on the podium was seven time tour champion Lance Armstrong, who finished third in his comeback to cycling's main event.

Contador finished the 96th edition of the world's toughest bicycle race with a lead of 4 minutes 11 seconds ahead of Luxembourg's Andy Schleck, who pulled in second.

Britain's Mark Cavendish nailed his sixth stage win of the tour in a sprint after the 164-kilometer (101.9-mile) ride from Montereau-Fault-Yonne to the Champs-Elysees. He outsprinted fellow Columbia team mate Mark Renshaw of Australia and American Tyler Farrar.

The winner of the green jersey for the points classification was Norway's Thor Hushovd and Italy's Franco Pellizotti won the polka dot jersey for the best climber.

Of course, it isn't over until it is over: the post-race doping tests still have to be done. And Alberto Contador's great performance will naturally come under scrutiny.

Three-time tour winner Greg Lemond already started the process with a column he wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde. In the article Lemond called Contador's 15th stage, when he took over the leader's yellow jersey, a brilliant climb to the finish.

During that climb, wrote Lemond, Contador set a new speed record. Lemond goes on to detail that, for this sort of performance, Contador would have required an aerobic capacity, or oxygen intake, of 99.5 ml/mn/kg.

"To my knowledge, that number has never been attained by any athlete in any sport," wrote Lemond.

Contador' has been the subject of doping rumors before, ever since documents with the initials AC were found in the home of a Spanish doctor who was in the middle of one of the worst doping scandals in sports.

av/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Kateri Jochum