Tour De France: Contador holds on to earn unlikely but hollow victory

Yesterday Alberto Contador became only the fifth Spaniard to win the Tour de France, but not even on the final stage could the race's persistent shadow of doping disappear.

Rumours that the riders would stop a metre before the finish to protest against the number of drugs scandals only completely ceased when the sprinters unleashed their usual charge for the line. The win went to Italy's Daniele Bennati.

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What prevented the strike was an apparent lack of agreement between the riders - in its way appropriate, given the amount of debate over the real value of Contador's victory.

The forcible exit of the Danish race leader Michael Rasmussen late on Wednesday evening, after his Rabobank team discovered he had lied over his whereabouts last month, left Contador, 24, in front with four days left to race. Rather than moving into yellow on the road, the Spaniard was lying half-asleep in bed the same night when he was informed that he had become the race leader. Such a bizarre handover of power did not diminish the Tour's reputation for being the world's leading sports soap opera, sometimes conducted on two wheels, but this year, at least, more often not.

Contador also discovered that after Rasmussen's exit, more than being purely prestigious, the yellow jersey is also an invitation for questions about doping. Long since cleared by his national federation and cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union, of any links to last year's doping inquiry Operation Puerto, the Spaniard nonetheless faced prolonged questioning about banned drugs, a real baptism of fire for a rider in only his second Tour.

Contador's strong defence of his race lead in Saturday's crucial long time trial, in any case - combined with his straightforward answers over doping - showed he was a worthy holder of the yellow jersey.

In pancake-flat terrain that did anything but suit the lightly built climber, Contador fended off Cadel Evans and his Discovery Channel team-mate Levi Leipheimer to finish a mere 23 seconds ahead of the Australian and 31 ahead of the American overall. It was the second smallest winning margin in Tour history after Greg LeMond's eight-second triumph over Laurent Fignon in 1989 and Contador was the first to admit his surprise.

He said: "I only came here to try for the white jersey [worn by the best young rider in the race]. I was never thinking about the yellow. As it was, once I had taken my stage win [at Plateau-de-Beille, in the Pyrenees] I said to myself that my Tour could stop here, anything else was a bonus.

"I was very worried about the third week, I had no idea whether I could hold on for so long in a major Tour. It was certainly very tense in the final time trial," Contador added, "they gave me time references on my rivals from the team car, but I had no idea whether to believe them or not."

For his Discovery Channel team manager, Johan Bruyneel, the power behind the throne in Lance Armstrong's seven Tour victories, his eighth win "was by far the most dramatic.

"We had no idea what Alberto could do in the final time trial," Bruyneel added. "Lance was 27 when he won his first Tour and had showed that he could handle pressure well. But Alberto came through and I'm very proud of him."

Equally, Contador's victory is in some ways a breath of fresh air for the Tour; he is the youngest rider to win the event since Jan Ullrich 10 years ago. Indeed, none of the top three finishers had ever stood on the podium in Paris before, and the same went for the points jersey winner, Tom Boonen, and King of the Mountains, Juan Mauricio Soler.

British fans also had some cause to celebrate, given that they had three finishers in Paris - Charly Wegelius, David Millar and Geraint Thomas - the most since 1988. The opening weekend in London and Kent - hopefully due to be repeated in 2013 or 2014 - was, by a long chalk, the high point of the event and is considered to have been the Tour's best ever start.

But, after a spectacular first 10 days, the race's shambolic decline into one drugs scandal after another has left many observers wondering whether the Tour will be able to survive in the long term. Although popular support has shrunk only slightly, with cycling almost entirely reliant on commercial enterprises for its income, the answer will lie partly with the sponsors . This week, in which several companies are due to announce whether they will continue backing a sport which so often appears to be its own worst enemy, will be at least as crucial as the final outcome of the 2007 Tour.