The Tour finished last night, or 2am this morning if you were watching it live in Sydney like me. It’s my July ritual, now that SBS are providing full, live coverage, and Jacqui knows that once early July rolls around I own the TV from about 10pm every night, unless it’s a rest day (for the Tour, not me).

This year’s race was somewhat disappointing. The return of the Team Time Trial was a farce. It hasn’t been in the race since Armstrong last competed in 2005, and all of a sudden makes a return just as Lance returns. Sure enough, Astana dominated, finishing the stage with their riders in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, providing them with a stranglehold on the race. More importantly, riders who were hoping to make a difference on GC such as Carlos Sastre and Cadel Evans, were effectively knocked out of the race after the 4th stage, losing 1:38 and 2:36 respectively. Hopefully next year Prudhomme goes back to a non-TTT course.

The return of Lance Armstrong turned the race into a bit of a soap opera as well, with more focus on the internal goings on of Team Astana than on the race itself, and his constant spin was a bit annoying. Contador was clearly the better rider, and all public pronouncements since Armstrong announced his return have been designed to reassure Contador that he’s the team’s No.1 rider. However, actions speak louder than words and it became apparent pretty quickly that Armstrong was No.1 and he would do everything possible to destabilise Contador, all the while uttering reassuring sound bites, proclaiming that he was riding according to team orders. Technically this was true, though as Bruyneel is firmly in Armstrong’s camp, “riding to team orders” does not mean “riding in support of Contador”.

Contador, to his credit, saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, and came to the race prepared for battle. He beat Lance in the prologue and put time into him on every mountain top finish, even when it wasn’t strictly necessary, just to hammer home to Lance that he had no chance. He mostly went along with Lance’s games in the media-despite heavy criticism from Lance and Bruyneel about disobeying team orders-but let his legs do the talking on the road. What they said was loud and clear: “I can take anything you throw at me and still kick your ass.”

Now that it’s all over, Lance is forming his own team with Bruyneel for next year and Contador will be on the move somewhere else, probably to Caisse d’Epargne. In a real scumbag move, Armstrong didn’t bother showing up to the team party to celebrate Contador’s win, preferring instead to have a few drinks with the investors in his new team. Wanker.