Mick Hartley

Well, Lance wins the final time trial and it’s all over bar the shouting. I have to say it’s been something of an anti-climax this year. No one managed to provide anything like an effective challenge, even though there were signs that Lance isn’t as strong as he used to be. His team was just so well organised – after an early scare – that the whole event turned into a procession.

Next year though….

Everyone’s saying Ullrich’s past it by now, but Lance’s retirement could provide the sort of psychological boost he needs. Maybe he hasn’t looked like a threat recently because deep down he never believed he could win the yellow jersey with Armstrong still around. He’s older and wiser, so he’s unlikely to let himself get out of shape through the winter, as he has done in the past. He knows 2006 is his best and probably his last chance.

There are the obvious other contenders, like Ivan Basso, or Vinokourov. There also enough anglophone contenders to make it interesting if you’re that way inclined – and I admit I am, sort of, because it annoys the French. Like Leipheimer, or Landis, or even George Hincapie, now that he’s freed from the chore of being Lance’s lieutenant. Or what about Aussie Cadel Evans, 8th overall?

What’s more intertesting is to see, over the next few years, if we get another of the dominant figures that the Tour seems to throw up, like Armstrong, Indurain, Hinault, Merckx, or whether it’ll just keep changing.