Almost invariably now, the last day of the Tour entails a high-speed train trip to within pedalling distance of Paris and a gentle Sunday stroll before the final thrash up and down the ChampsElysees. An end-of-term feeling pervades the peloton, who know that wives and families await in a five-star hotel on the peripherique.

A bottle of champagne was passed from rider to rider during yesterday afternoon's stage from Melun. To underline that their work was over, the team-mates of Marco Pantani, who yesterday became the first Italian to win the Tour for 33 years, all dyed their hair blond. It could have been worse: when Pantani won the Giro d'Italia in June, they shaved their heads.

But the final stage was not without its nervous moments. Heavy showers left a greasy sheen on the cobbles of the Champs, and the peloton negotiated the dead turn at the Arc de Triomphe with the utmost caution. Both Pantani and the Frenchman who finished fourth overall, Christophe Rinero, punctured but made their way back to the bunch.

Fortunately, the cobbles dried for the final, heart-stopping rush to the line, which went to the Belgian champion Tom Steels. He was expelled last year for throwing a bottle at a rival and has returned to take four stage victories, more than any sprinter since 1988.

Paris has been on the minds of most riders since the Tour came close to ending on Wednesday; the relief as the chequered flag approached yesterday must have been more acute than usual. This has been the Tour of the two Ps: Pantani and the police, whose investigations into banned drugs have led to arrests, searches, strikes and stand-offs.

Pantani did not feel his victory had been devalued by the scandals. "It was very special psychologically and nervously," he said. "No sport can be compared with this as we lived three weeks of intense competition with, on top of it, doping problems and police threats. The fear of police has without any doubt made this Tour cleaner."

The Italian's has been an epic victory, taken in a style which the Italians call all'antica - in the old way. The lone raid of "The Pirate" across the Alps a week ago to take the yellow jersey as the 1997 winner, Jan Ullrich, struggled in the rain was worthy of any of the Tour's great climbers, such as Lucien van Impe, the last mountain man to win the Tour, back in 1976.

Pantani forged his Tour win on an eggshell-blue Bianchi bike, the same make ridden by the only other Italian to win both the Giro d'Italia and Tour in the same year: Fausto Coppi, who did the double in 1952. The resonance will not be lost on the Italians, who have sought for two generations for a cycling hero capable of emulating the campionissimo.

When Pantani started the Giro, Ullrich was engaged in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to find form after a winter of excess and a spring of illness. It is impossible to say for certain in the Tour whether the German's collapse in the opening Alpine stage was related to his poor build-up, but it seems likely. In any case, he lost so much time that Pantani had no need to worry about the final time-trial stage on Saturday in eastern France, even though this is not his speciality.

The German's time-trial victory was inevitable and took his tally of Tour stage wins to three. But, in overall terms, he did little more than peg Pantani back to a reasonable margin, taking two minutes 35 seconds off the Italian, while swapping third place for second at the expense of the American Bobby Julich.

But the final week of this Tour may well mean more to Ullrich in the long term than his second place overall suggests. Still only 24, the man from Rostock has now finished second, first and second in three Tours.

Ullrich seems to have grown up during this Tour; he graciously admitted on Saturday that he had made a mistake by failing to stay on the straight and narrow last winter, when he took on the proportions of a barrage balloon rather than a cyclist.

"I won't make the same mistake again," he said. "It's a lesson that I have to learn, right now." The prospect of Ullrich building properly for next year's Tour and taking on Pantani - large, dour German all-rounder against tiny, ebullient Italian climber - is truly mouthwatering.