Cycling/Tour de France: One of the great attractions of the Tour is that the riders run the gamut of emotions, and after the doubts, the anger, the shock and the puzzlement of the previous 21 days, the relief was palpable as Floyd Landis and the rest pedalled the 96km into the centre of Paris before the final hectic circuits on the Champs-Elysées.
For the first time in two weeks the heat had slackened. For the first time since leaving Strasbourg three weeks earlier, the early pace was leisurely, merely 32kmph as the peloton trundled past the palace at Versailles like a vast crowd of weekend cyclists. Finally some sense seemed to have arrived in a race universally and correctly described as "anarchic".
It is too early to say where Landis' win will fit in the Tour's 103-year history, but it was certainly one of the least straightforward the race has seen.
The uncertainty continued until the end of Saturday afternoon's time-trial; even when he pedalled metronomically into Montceau-les-Mines with a decent enough lead on the yellow jersey-wearer Oscar Pereiro, his victory was by no means guaranteed.
One misjudged corner or an unlucky puncture would have been enough to throw the race back into the balance.
"I thought I was the favourite but, with the yellow jersey on, people can be inspired. I knew it wouldn't be easy to get the time I needed," Landis said, and indeed Pereiro fought like a lion, only falling definitively behind the American about halfway through the 58km contre la montre and never allowing him any margin for error.
As Landis pointed out, after what amounted to an 128km time-trial through the Alps 48 hours earlier, who knew what would happen?
Addressing the press on Saturday evening, Landis' eyes glanced continually around the room as if in search of some reference point. He is friendly enough, but just on the polite side of terse. He has nothing approaching the presence Lance Armstrong enjoyed even at the end of his first Tour, but the French media may well consider that a good thing.
Finally, he offered some explanation of the extraordinary events of last Wednesday and Thursday, when he lost eight minutes to Pereiro one afternoon and regained most of them the next. His collapse, he said, was the phenomenon cyclists call "the bonk", caused simply by the fact that he had not had the concentration necessary to eat enough during the stage.
That explained his recovery to dominate the Alpine stage to Morzine in a manner which ensured that this Tour will have its place in the history books for something other than a major doping scandal.
"It doesn't take long to recover from bonking and after a few hours I felt better."
Landis' 128km escape was an act of pride and desperation from a man whose attempts to race conservatively had backfired in an episode he described as "one of the more humiliating things that had happened to me".
Asked about his reaction, he said it was simply a matter of having his back to the wall.
"Most of the times the things I do are calculated and logical, (but on Thursday) I needed to get eight minutes back so I needed to get rid of the calculations and logic and get angry."
With hindsight, the little elements that make the greater whole in the Tour tended to fall Landis' way. In the Pyrenees, the Ag2R team did not do quite enough to keep the yellow jersey on the shoulders of Cyril Dessel, which opened the way for Pereiro to become just the interim leader Landis needed to take the pressure off him.
In the Alps, the T-Mobile team never rode aggressively enough; had the American been subjected to a long-distance attack and put under real pressure on his off-day at La Toussuire, he might have lost the yellow jersey for good.
"I feel lucky, because the race is three weeks long, a lot of people put in as much work as I did, but on the right days I had some luck."
That was indeed the case, but Landis' effort last Thursday showed he also had the ability to make his own good fortune.
FLOYD LANDIS Factfile Tour Details
1975: Born October 14th, in Farmersville, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
1999: Begins professional road-racing career with the Mercury team. Wins opening stage on his way to second place in the Cascade Classic, also securing top-five finishes in the Tour de l'Avenir, the Red Zinger Classic and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce.
2000: Wins his first overall title, the Tour du Poitou-Charentes, with Mercury, also finishing fourth in the Tour de l'Avenir and fifth in Malaysia's Tour de Langkawi, winning the opening stage.
2001: Wins the Boulevard Road Race.
2002: Joins Lance Armstrong's US Postal Service team. Makes an excellent early impression, finishing second in the Dauphine Libere, third in the Tirreno-Adriatico and fifth in the Circuit de la Sarthe. Finishes 61st overall on his Tour de France debut.
2003: Picks up his first Tour de France stage win on stage four from Joinville to Saint-Dizier.
2004: Wins Portugal's Volta ao Algarve, claiming victory in stage five along the way. Helps US Postal Service win stage four of the Tour de France, a team time trial from Cambrai to Arras.
2005: Moves to the Phonak Hearing Systems team, finishing third in the Tour de Georgia and ninth in the Tour de France.
2006 - February: Wins the inaugural Tour of California, also winning stage three, the individual time trial stage.
March: Wins the Paris-Nice stage race.
April 23rd: Wins Tour de Georgia, again claiming individual time trial victory in stage three.
July 13th: Takes Tour de France yellow jersey for the first time in his career.
July 15th: Loses yellow jersey to Caisse D'Epargne's Oscar Pereiro.
July 18th: Regains the lead after the prestigious L'Alpe d'Huez stage.
July 19th: Slips to 11th place in the standings after a late collapse on stage 16 to La Toussuire, seemingly dropping out of contention.
July 20th: Stages a remarkable 120km solo breakaway to win stage 17 to Morzine by nearly six minutes and close to within 30 seconds of Pereiro in the overall standings.
July 22nd: Regains overall lead by 59 seconds with just one stage remaining.
July 23rd: Crowned Tour de France champion despite having suffered from hip condition osteonecrosis for over 20 months, necessitating a hip replacement operation after the conclusion of the Tour.
STAGE 20 (Antony Parc de Sceaux - Paris Champs-Elysee, 154.5km): 1 T Hushovd (Nor) Crédit Agricole 3hrs 56mins 52secs, 2 R McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto, 3 S O'Grady (Aus) Team CSC, 4 E Zabel (Ger) Milram, 5 L Paolini (Ita) Liquigas, 6 S Dumoulin (Fra) AG2R-Prevoyance, 7 B Eisel (Aut) Francaise Des Jeux, 8 A Geslin (Fra) Bouygues Telecom, 9 A Ballan (Ita) Lampre-Fondital, 10 P Wrolich (Aut) Gerolsteiner ast.
FINAL GENERAL CLASSIFICATION: 1 Floyd Landis (US) Phonak 89hrs 39mins 30secs, 2 Oscar Pereiro (Spa) Caisse D'Epargne-Illes Balears at 0:57, 3 Andreas Kloden (Ger) T-Mobile at 1:29, 4 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC at 3:13, 5 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto at 5:08, 6 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank at 7:06, 7 Cyril Dessel (Fra) AG2R Prevoyance at 8:41, 8 Christophe Moreau (Fra) AG2R Prevoyance at 9:37, 9 Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi at 12:05, 10 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile at 15:07, 11 Frank Schleck (Lux) Team CSC at 17:46, 12 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre-Fondital at 19:19, 13 Levi Leipheimer (US) Gerolsteiner at 19:22, 14 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank at 19:46, 15 Marcus Fothen (Ger) Gerolsteiner at 19:57. POINTS: 1. McEwen 288, 2. Zabel 199, 3. Hushovd 19. MOUNTAIN: 1. M Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank 166, 2. Landis 131, 3. D De la Fuente (Spa) Saunier Duval 113. TEAM: 1. T-Mobile 269:08:46, 2. Team CSC +17:04, 3. Rabobank +23:26.
