PARIS — His familiar place high atop the Champs-Elysees podium was occupied by someone else, but it hardly mattered to Lance Armstrong that he was positioned about a foot lower in the spotlight Sunday at the end of the Tour de France.
"I came here to do my best, and I came across some guys who were clearly better than me," said Armstrong, who completed the 2,141-mile race after sitting out since 2005. "I don't have any regrets. I got put out a couple of times, but considering my age and recent racing, it's not a bad performance overall."
 Deborah Cannon/Cox Newspapers Lance Armstrong, shown in a time trial at his previous Tour de France in 2005. For a larger, high resolution image, click HERE |
Instead, it was Astana teammate Alberto Contador who wore yellow in Paris. The 26-year-old built a 4 minute, 11 second lead over Andy Schleck, a 24-year-old rider from Luxembourg, and 5:24 over Armstrong.
The 37-year-old Armstrong thus became the second-oldest rider to earn a spot among the Tour's top three.
His third-place finish still had that familiar, celebratory feel for a man who won the race a record seven consecutive years.
Friends who used to make the trip during his winning streak flew in from Austin, Texas, for the finish. Armstrong's mother, girlfriend and four children viewed Sunday's ceremonial stage from the VIP section just down from the Arc de Triomphe. They all stayed at the Hotel Crillion, a luxury hotel just steps away from the Champs-Elysees. But the hotel did not unfurl the Texas flag as during his historic run.
His twin girls were decked out in yellow sundresses, just like they were in 2005, when more than 500,000 fans gathered on the city's most famous street to acknowledge what was then thought to be their father's last Tour. Baby son Max, who was born in Colorado seven weeks ago, was oblivious to it all, as he slept on his mother's shoulder for much of the podium presentation.
Actor Matthew McConaughey, one of Armstrong's closest friends, came to Paris to give the day some celebrity glitz.
Armstrong didn't cement his podium status until 24 hours before, as he carefully expanded a slim lead of 15 seconds for third place on a blustery climb of the Mont Ventoux about 500 miles south of Paris.
He finished fifth on the iconic mountain Saturday, sticking with the much younger cyclists who had made his racing life miserable on earlier climbs over the past week.
Ventoux is so tough that the Tour has included it as a finish only seven other times in the race's 106-year-old history. Yet Armstrong and his 37-year-old legs handled it with ease.
"What we saw on the Ventoux was the old-fashioned Lance Armstrong," said Johan Bruyneel, Armstrong's long-time team director.
Will the "old-fashioned Armstrong" be better next year?
Bruyneel thinks so.
He's already exceeded expectations, coming back from three years of retirement, then having surgery in March to repair his shattered collarbone.
"I didn't expect that he could finish third after such a year," Bruyneel said. "Now, his comeback is over. He'll now go on riding. Next year, he'll be better than this year."
Armstrong has announced that he'll be back in France in a year for another shot at an eighth jersey. He'll be wearing red in 2010, leading the newly created Team RadioShack, a squad to be based in Austin and managed by Capital Sports and Entertainment.
"This will be a top-tier team with a budget of $15-20 million," said Bill Stapleton, Armstrong's agent and Team RadioShack general manager.
Stapleton said he probably will be able to start signing riders in early August. Speculation is that Armstrong will want several members of his current Astana team who helped him in France, including top riders Andreas Kloden, who was sixth overall for the yellow jersey, and Levi Leipheimer, who was fourth until he broke his wrist the second week of the Tour.
Contador, who was as much as rival to Armstrong as he was a teammate, will not be riding for RadioShack.
The relationship had become so strained that Armstrong did not attend Contador's informal yellow jersey party Saturday night. Neither did Bruyneel, who is expected to make the jump to Team RadioShack.
However, Bruyneel said Armstrong came to him a week ago, before the first major climb in the Alps, to say he'd work for Contador. It was clear then that Contador had the dominant set of legs.
"I think his performance this year would have beaten my performances in 2001 and '04 and '05," Armstrong said.
There are technical measurements for climbing efficiency and acceleration. Contador, on the short but steep climb to Verbier, the day he went into yellow, registered an 1,850. The highest Armstrong ever registered was 1,790, when he won the stage to Alpe d'Huez.
French cycling fans, who never warmed to Armstrong while he was dominating the race, started cheering him on over the past month. He very nearly earned yellow the first week after two key stages. He missed by 0.2 seconds
It seemed appropriate then that Armstrong put his name alongside France's Raymond Poulidor, who is believed to be his country's favorite all-time rider.
Poulidor always was the underdog to record-breaking cyclists Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx, who each won five Tours. He still is the oldest cyclist to earn a podium spot — taking second at 38 in 1974, then followed it up two years later with a third place finish.
France President Nicolas Sarkozy, who rode in the lead Tour car last week for the race's longest mountain stage, raved about Armstrong.
Through interpreters, Sarkozy said: "Lance Armstrong did more in five minutes (at this year's Tour) than his public relations team did in 10 years."
Suzanne Halliburton writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: shalliburton(at)statesman.com.
