Cavendish wins in Paris; Contador takes 3rd Tour de France

No one can beat Mark Cavendish if he can see the finish line from the front of the peloton.

He proved that again on Sunday when he won the final stage of the 2010 Tour de France in Paris, becoming the first cyclist to celebrate consecutive final stage wins.

The HTC-Columbia sprinter passed Alessandro Petacchi and Thor Hushovd on the Champs-Elysees, marking his 5th stage win at this year's Tour. It was his 15th career win at the Tour.

Yellow jersey

Decked out like a yellow canary, Alberto Contador finished comfortably in the pack to retain his lead and win his second consecutive Tour de France championship, the third of his career.

His slim 39-second time gap over rival Andy Schleck was the 4th narrowest victory in the history of the Tour. Contador won this year's Tour without winning a single stage.

Following Contador and Schleck to the podium was Denis Menchov, who unseated Olympic gold medalist Sammy Sanchez by posting a faster finish in Saturday's individual time trial.

After the race, Schleck was quoted:

“It’s a completely different feeling to when I came second in 2009. I got up there and look at the yellow jersey now and I realize I was so close – but in the end it’s so far away. I almost had it. I wore yellow for six days and I’m more than sure that I want to do better. I have a meeting on the Champs-Elysées next year with the yellow jersey. I’ll be back to win it.“

Contador:

“It is a Tour in which I had a lot of pressure, especially physically as I was not at my best level. It took a lot of confidence to face difficult situations. For example, everyone said I had already won the Tour after the stage to the Tourmalet. But we saw yesterday, in the race against the clock, that it was not fully played out. Today is therefore a great relief for me, it is a moment that I feel like I’ve been liberated from all the pressure.“

Other winners

Team

In spite of finishing in 23rd place overall, Lance Armstrong got to make a trip to the podium in his last Tour de France.

The RadioShack cycling team that he and Johan Bruyneel assembled won the Best Team Award in the 2010 Tour de France. They had four cyclists in the top 25 — Chris Horner (10), Levi Leipheimer (13), Andreas Kloden (14) and Armstrong.

[RadioShack was nearly ejected from the final stage. Event organizers objected to the special jerseys the team wore to the starting line on Sunday to honor cancer victims and the Livestrong Foundation. The jerseys bore the number “28” for 28 million cancer victims. They were allowed to proceed after agreeing to change into their race jerseys after the neutral zone.]

Green Jersey

The winner of the green Points Jersey this year went to a flash from the past — Alessandro Petacchi. The Italian — formerly known as Ale-Jet — came back to win stages 1 and 4 this year.

Those wins, plus high finishes and mid-race sprints points, earned the Lampre rider enough points to eke out the honor ahead of Cavendish and Hushovd.

Polka-dot jersey

A Frenchman, Anthony Charteau (BBox), won the mountains competition. He beat another Frenchman, Christophe Moreau, who at age 39 was one of the oldest men in the peloton.

Youth jersey

For the third year in a row, Andy Schleck won the best young rider competition, beating Robert Gesink of Rabobank. Schleck will be too old to qualify for that jersey in 2011; maybe he'll wear the yellow jersey in Paris. It was the second year in a row that he's finished in second place.

Laterne rouge

Italy's Adriano Malori finished in 170th place this year. That's the last place among those who finished all the stages and earned him the traditional red lantern award for his place in the caboose. He final time was 4 hours 27 minutes slower than Contador's.

Top 10 overall

1. Alberto Contador, Astana

2. Andy Schleck, Saxo Bank – 39 seconds

3. Denis Menchov, Rabobank – 2:01

4. Samuel Sanchez, Euskaltel Euskadi – 3:40

5. Jurgen van den Broeck, Omega – 6:54

6. Robert Gesink, Rabobank – 9:31

7. Ryder Hesjedal, Garmin-Transitions – 10:15

8. Joaquin Rodriguez, Katusha – 11:37

9. Roman Kreuziger, Liquigas – 11:54

10. Chris Horner, RadioShack – 12:02

—-

13. Levi Leipheimer, RadioShack – 14:40

14. Andreas Kloden, RadioShack – 16:36

16. Alexandre Vinokourov, Astana – 17:46

23. Lance Armstrong, RadioShack – 39:20

26. Cadel Evans, BMC – 50:27

32. Ivan Basso, Liquigas – 59:33

59. George Hincapie, BMC – 1:46

101. David Zabriskie, Garmin – 3:01

147. Brent Bookwalter, BMC – 3:41