Tonight is the last stage in this year’s Tour de France. Unfortunately Cadel Evans was not able to get back into the yellow jersey yesterday, so barring any unfortunate accidents the winner will be Spain’s Carlos Sastre. There is obviously a lot of disappointment here in Australia over Cadel not winning, but it’s fair to say that it is a well deserved win for Sastre. His team, CSC, have been well ahead of the others. Some people are lamenting that Silence-Lotto were not able to provide better support for Evans, but it is really that CSC were the odd one out in being so good. Many other riders who will finish near the top of the GC like Menchov and Vandevelde were also largely on their own. It wasn’t just that CSC had just a great group of riders, but they played it perfectly as far as tactics go. They really showed the extent to which it is a team sport, and brought back memories of Team Discovery Channel supporting Lance Armstrong.

I’ve seen a few comments around the place, which I also saw when Evans went into the last stage in second place last year, to the effect that Evans should forget about tradition and race for the win. While it is something of a tradition to take it easy on the last day, as the riders celebrate just making it to the end (and make sure that they do indeed get all the way to the end), it is not as if he is giving up a chance to win just to be polite. In reality there is no real opportunity to succeed in a breakaway on a flat stage if there is a team that doesn’t want you to. There is no way CSC would let Evans get anywhere off the front.

The TV coverage has just started up so time to enjoy the great views as the tour moves into Paris.