The Tour De France Ends: 2,200 Miles Forward, One Giant Step Backwards for Cycling

The 94th Tour de France began July 7 in London in a debut departure city, without a defending titlist and with hopes of a new, successful chapter in its desire to fight doping.

It ended 23 days and more than 2,200 miles later after superior cycling, a surprise winner and a fourth American reaching the podium.

But the Tour was also no closer toward its quest to alleviate its long association with performance-enhancing drugs.

With his pack finish Sunday, Spaniard Alberto Contador of the American-based Discovery Channel team claimed the race by 23 seconds over Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) of Australia and by 31 seconds over Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) of Santa Rosa, California.

Contador assumed the lead after Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) of Denmark, the race leader for nine days, was kicked out by his team after the 16th stage for lying about his whereabouts for out-of-competition drug testing.

With his win, Contador, 24, became the race's first victor since German Jan Ullrich in 1997 to not only win claim the race winner's Yellow Jersey but also the White Jersey as the best young rider age 25 and under. He's also the first Spanish rider to win the race since Miguel Indurain in 1995.

Contador, like seven-time race winner Lance Armstrong, who owns part of the team for which the Spaniard rides, overcame near-death to win cycling's most prestigious race. During a race in the fall of 2004, Contador suffered a brain aneurism.

But he returned to the sport. And with his Tour title, which many observers felt was a win with sizable asterisk, was the second-closest margin of victory in race history. In 1989, American Greg LeMond won the second of his three Tour de France finals when he overcame a final-day deficit by winning the final-day time trial in Paris and claiming the title by eight seconds.

Contador's victory was also tainted.

Two teams, Cofidis and Astana, left the race after each had a rider test positive. The Astana rider was Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan, the pre-race favorite. He was booted from the race after testing positive after winning the 13th stage time trial.

The exits of teams and top riders prompted some to call for an end to the Tour. Some European newspapers and television stages stopped reporting on the event.

But the race went on.

As occurs every year, this year's event was a race of attrition. The starting field 189 riders in London dwindled to 141 (74.6 percent) by the final day in Paris.

Six Americans, riding for three different teams, began the race. Four finished, led by Leipheimer, who claimed his fourth top-10 overall finish and first appearance on the podium.

Leipheimer began the race as the pending leader for the Discovery Channel squad. But when Contador excelled in the mountains, Leipheimer's role change.

Nevertheless, Leipheimer rode to a dominant time trial win in the 19th stage, the Tour de France stage win of his career.

With his third place, Leipheimer joined Armstrong, LeMond and last year's race winner, Floyd Landis, as American cyclists on the final-day podium. But Landis, also embattled is doping accusations, did not compete this year.

Leipheimer, whose best previous Tour finish was sixth in 2005, was joined by three other strong American efforts.

Chris Horner (Predictor-Lotto) rode primarily in support of Evans. But he finished 15th, a career-best. George Hincapie (Discovery Channel) finished 24th overall, his 11th Tour finish, the most by an American. And Christian Vande Velde (CSC) of Lemont, Ill., finished 25th. David Zabriskie (CSC) of Salt Lake City, Utah, a former Tour de France stage winner and race leader, and Fred Rodriguez (Predictor-Lotto) of Emeryville, Calif., both withdrew.