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Spaniard Contador crowned Tour de France champion

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-27 14:42

PARIS: Alberto Contador of Spain was crowned Tour de France champion for the second time after the 21st and final stage Sunday.

Britain's Mark Cavendish, of the Columbia team, won the final stage at the Champs Elysees to claim a record-equalling sixth victory of the race.

Contador, 26, finished the 96th edition of the world's toughest bike race with a lead of 4min 11sec on Luxembourg's Andy Schleck of Saxo Bank.

Astana rider and leader's yellow jersey Alberto Contador of Spain (R) celebrates his overall victory on the podium after the final 21st stage of the 96th Tour de France cycling race between Montereau-Fault-Yonne and Paris July 26, 2009. [Agencies]

Seven-time champion Lance Armstrong, Contador's teammate at Astana, was third overall at 5:24.

Schleck, 24, won the race's white jersey for the best placed rider aged 25 and under for the second year in a row.

Armstrong claimed a commendable place on the podium having decided to end a three-and-a-half year retirement when he returned to professional racing in January.

Norwegian Thor Hushovd did enough at the finish to keep the sprinters' green jersey for the points competition while Italian Franco Pellizotti of Liquigas won the polka dot jersey for the race's best climber.

Cervelo Test Team rider and the sprinter's green jersey Thor Hushovd of Norway celebrates on the Champs Elysees after the final 21st stage of the 96th Tour de France cycling race between Montereau-Fault-Yonne and Paris July 26, 2009. [Agencies]

French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) director Pierre Bordry also revealed Sunday urine samples taken on the 2008 Tour de France cycle race will be retested in search for a new form of blood-boosting drug EPO.

"Before this year's Tour start in Monaco, we warned some 15 riders that in conformity with the world anti-doping code we would analzse retrospectively samples taken on the 2008 Tour," Bordry told Reuters without naming the riders.

The testing, which will be conducted in September and October, would look mainly for CERA, a third-generation form of the banned hormone erythropoietin (EPO), he added.

CERA was first detected on the 2008 Tour in samples belonging to Italy's Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli.

Two other riders, Germany's Stefan Schumacher and Austrian Bernhard Kohl, were later found to also have taken CERA during the 2008 Tour.

No positive drugs test has been announced so far on the 2009 edition of the race which ends in Paris Sunday.