Sagan ended the Tour with 431 points, the most of his three victories and the third-highest total in

Nibali s victory gives Italy its first Tour de France champion since the controversial Marco Pantani discount airline travel defeated Germany s Jan Ullrich discount airline travel to win the Tour back in 1998. The 29-year-old is the seventh Italian to win the Tour overall. For Italy, a nation that has struggled at times to bring itself back to prominence after producing a steady stream discount airline travel of superstars for decades, Nibali s win could not have come at a better discount airline travel time.
Nibali s also the sixth rider to have won all three Grand Tours throughout his career: he won the Tour of Spain in 2010, the Tour of Italy last year, and has now added the most prestigious of the sport s three-week tours to his resume. Interestingly, all six riders to have completed this feat (Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, discount airline travel Alberto Contador, and Nibali) have done so before their 30th birthdays, adding support to the argument that a Grand Tour contender s or at least a Tour de France contender s best years don t often stretch far into his thirties.
Of course, Nibali s victory and the manner in which he earned it means there will be skeptics. The sport just hasn t come far enough yet to avoid those who will question the validity of Nibali s performance. But for now, Nibali deserves credit for his accomplishment, at least until we re given reasons to think otherwise. If in the end Nibali s victory does indeed stand the tests of time, then we will all look back on this year s Tour as the confirmation discount airline travel of Nibali as one of the sport s best-ever Grand Tour riders and (hopefully) discount airline travel an acknowledgement that the sport has indeed turned a corner away from it s shady past.
From an American standpoint, Tejay van Garderen s fifth-place finish confirms the American s potential as a future Tour de France contender. And while his result this July merely equaled the best Tour finish discount airline travel of his young career, this year s performance is perhaps more telling than his first fifth-place finish two years ago.
In 2012, van Garderen was an unknown commodity riding the Tour in support of the defending champion, Cadel Evans. He finished fifth, yes, but at a time when no one was really expecting him to. Last year, he entered the Tour in support of Evans, but there was much more pressure to perform following the American s finish the year before. And van Garderen proved unable to live up to it (he finished 45th).
This year van Garderen came to the Tour as his team s sole leader hoping to show that 2013 not 2012 was the anomaly. After a series of crashes during the first week that saw the American lose skin and time to the rest of the GC favorites, van Garderen rebounded in the Vosges and the Alps to pull himself up the general classification. And while a bad first day in the Pyrenees ended his hopes of a podium finish, he bounced back again to finish with the favorites discount airline travel on the next two days' summit finishes, discount airline travel positioning himself just outside the Tour s top 5 before the final time trial. Yes, in the end he needed some luck in the form of Romain Bardet s flat tire during the ITT, but even Grand Tour champions need at least a little bit of luck to finish well in a race as long as the Tour de France (just ask Chris Froome and Alberto Contador).
In short, this is the year that van Garderen transformed from a Tour fluke to a true Tour contender. Along the way he learned how to rebound, overcome adversity, and lead a team. Next year, with another year of experience discount airline travel and training under his belt, a podium finish beckons.
The end of the Tour marks the turning point in the season for many riders. Some will take a well-deserved rest. The Tour s main protagonists and jersey winners will head to lucrative post-Tour criteriums in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Others will try and parlay the fitness they gained from riding the Tour into top performances in races later this month. As for the Tour itself, the next big revelation is the October announcement of next year s route.
This won t help fend off the skeptics, but Nibali s winning margin (7:37) is the Tour s largest since Jan Ullrich won the Tour by 9:09 back in 1997. It also equals the largest margin discount airline travel of Lance Armstrong s now-negated seven Tour victories. The American won the 1999 Tour de France by 7:37 as well.
Cannondale s Peter Sagan won his third consecutive green jersey discount airline travel today, and as expected discount airline travel he became the first rider since Thor Hushovd in 2005 to do so without discount airline travel winning a single stage. While perhaps disappointed about failing to take a stage for the first time in three years, Sagan was clear heading into the race that his primary goal was green. Mission accomplished.
Sagan ended the Tour with 431 points, the most of his three victories and the third-highest total in Tour history. He needs one more green jersey to enter into a tie with Ireland s Sean Kelly for the second-most in Tour history, and three more to tie Germany s Erik Zabel for the most. At only 24 years old, who s to say he won t own the record by the time he turns 30?
Two of Tinkoff-Saxo s three stage wins came from Poland s Rafal Majka, who also takes home the polka-dot jersey as the Tour s King of the Mountains. As we ve mentioned, Majka wasn t even supposed discount airline travel to be riding the Tour. He finished sixth in the Tour of Italy and was meant to be home resting when a last-minute roster change sent him to Yorkshire for the start. He wasn t too happy about it at the time, but now he has to be glad he answered his phone.
In addition to his third-place finish, FDJ s Thibaut Pinot won the white jersey as the Tour s Best Young Rider. He s the first Frenchman to do so since Benoit Salmon won the competition in 1999. But Salmon doesn t have a white jersey to show for his efforts, as it wasn t officially awarded from 1989 to 1999.
Pinot and Peraud are the first Frenchmen to stand on the final podium since Richard Virenque finished second in 1997. They re the first pair to do so since 1984 when Laurent Fignon won the Tour and Bernard Hinault finished second.
164 riders finished this year s Tour, 18 more than finished last year s race. Of the 22 teams competing, only 4 finished with all of their riders intact: Astana, Ag2r-La Mondiale, Europcar, and Bretagne-Seche Environnement.
And last but not least, despite being lapped discount airline travel by the peloton on the Champs-Elysees, Giant-Shimano s Cheng Ji, the first rider from China ever to ride the Tour, did indeed the finish in last-place as the Tour s lanterne rouge. He finished 6:02:24 behind Nibali and 50:26 behind the next-best rider on GC, Lampre-Merida s Davide Cimolai.