Carlos Sastre has been a contender for the Tour de France victory for so long that few people thought he would ever actually win it.Despite five top-10 finishes in the last six years and four victories in mountain stages during that time, Sastre was widely considered the always-a-bridesmaid rider who could not get far enough ahead in the mountains to fend off the superior time-trialing abilities of other, more well-rounded riders.Two people did believe in Sastre, however, and they turned out to be the most important. The first was Bjarne Riis, the poker-faced manager of the CSC-Saxo Bank team and former Tour winner who said before the start of this year’s Tour that Sastre was the team’s leader — which most journalists took to mean that the team was really secretly betting on two younger riders, Frank and Andy Schleck.The second was Sastre himself, who said before the Tour that he went into this season dedicated to not repeating last year’s mistake, when he missed finishing on the Tour podium in part because of his poor performances in the time trials. Sastre, 33, donned the final yellow jersey of the 95th Tour de France on Sunday on the Champs-Élysées, one day after a surprisingly strong ride in the final time trial preserved a 65-second lead over Cadel Evans, the Australian member of the Silence-Lotto team who was the pre-race favourite for the Tour crown. “It’s a dream coming true, I have been waiting so long for this,” Sastre said.The 21st and final stage, an 89-mile ride into Paris was capped by eight laps around the city’s most famous boulevard. Sastre and the other top-ranked riders finished as part of the pack, leaving no changes in the overall standings. Ending the three-week, 2,212-mile race in third place, behind Sastre and Evans, was Bernard Kohl, a German rider for the Gerolsteiner team, who finished 1:20 behind Sastre in the overall standings.Sastre became the third consecutive Spanish rider to win the world’s biggest bicycle race, a pattern that he said in part reflected luck but which also was a result of a national program that encourages young cyclists. Another positive testKazakh Dmitriy Fofonov of the Credit Agricole team tested positive for the banned stimulant heptaminol after the 18th stage of the Tour de France, the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) said on Sunday. He was immediately fired by his team. “Fofonov tested positive for a banned stimulant, we have notified him with the news today,” Pierre Bordry, the head of the AFLD, said. “The substance is heptaminol.” Fofonov finished in 19th place.
