July 29, 2001
SportsLine.com wire reports

PARIS -- Lance Armstrong won his third straight Tour de France on Sunday, ending three weeks of grueling competition with the Texan once again dominating the world's toughest cycling event.

In the leader's yellow jersey he has worn for the last seven stages of the Tour, Armstrong crossed the finish line on the Champs-Elysees with the main pack as tens of thousands of spectators lined the graceful avenue.

Lance Armstrong gets an early taste of champagne during the final stage.(Reuters)

His victory on Sunday had not been in doubt. He had built up a huge lead in the mountains, meaning only sickness or accident could prevent him from claiming the title.

He became the first American to win the Tour three times in a row. Greg LeMond also won three Tours, but with a two-year gap between his first and second titles. The Tour record of five wins is held jointly by four riders. Only Spain's Miguel Indurain won five consecutively.

The rider from Austin, Texas, who came back from advanced testicular cancer to win the Tour for the first time in 1999, was close to the front of the pack when it reached the Champs-Elysees under a scorching sun.

Armstrong completed 10 laps up and down the avenue, circling the Tuileries gardens at the foot of the Louvre museum before heading back toward the Arc de Triomphe.

Czech rider Jan Svorada won Sunday's stage between Corbeil-Essonnes and the French capital, ending a more-than 2,100-mile ride through France and Belgium in 20 legs.

Armstrong finished with a big lead over second-placed Jan Ullrich of Germany in the overall standings. Spaniard Joseba Beloki was third.

That finish was identical to last year's, only the second time in Tour history that the same riders have finished 1-2-3 in consecutive years.

Armstrong's route to victory was sealed in just five mountain stages. And by the time he was through, Armstrong's toughest rival, Ullrich, acknowledged defeat with a whole week to go.

"I tried everything to seek out the slightest weakness, but Lance didn't have any," Ullrich said after the last mountain stage.

The contest opened for real halfway through the Tour, when riders reached the Alps.

Armstrong arrived trailing the overall leader by 22 places and fans were anxiously awaiting a sign that he had the race under control.

His title chances looked dim to many when he grimaced in apparent agony and trailed Ullrich all the way to the foot of L'Alpe d'Huez, one of the toughest climbs in cycling.

Then he began moving up through the pack. He continued until he reached the front, just ahead of Ullrich.

He looked back, then surged ahead and sprinted up the 21 hairpin bends to the summit, claiming his first stage victory and beating Ullrich by a whopping 1:59.

He took the yellow jersey in a gut-wrenching stretch from Foix to Pla d'Adet that featured six exceptionally difficult mountain passes.

Following a by-now familiar pattern, he let Ullrich lead for most of the race before powering ahead in the last climb and winning the stage.

Coming down from the mountains, the Texan extended his lead by winning the last individual time-trial, taking his fourth stage victory of the Tour.

PARIS (Ticker) -- The three-peat is complete. American Lance Armstrong has won his third straight Tour de France.

Armstrong cruised to the finish line in 70th place in the 20th and final stage of the 88th Tour from Corbeil-Essonnes to Paris' Avenue de Champs-Elysees on Sunday. But he completed the 85.70-mile journey in the same time as Jan Ullrich of Germany, who is the Tour's runner-up for the fourth time in the last six years.

The win has elevated the Texan to the upper echelon of cycling royalty. He joined Frenchmen Louison Bobet (1953-55) and Jacques Anquetil (1961-64), Belgian Eddie Merckx (1969-72) and Spaniard Miguel Indurain (1991-95) as the only riders to have won at least three consecutive Tours.

Only Anquetil, Merckx, Indurain and Bernard Hinault of France (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985) have won the great race more than three times.

Jan Svorada of Slovenia took the honors as winner of Sunday's final stage.

Armstrong is recognized as one the world's most courageous athletes after battling back from life-threatening testicular cancer to capture the 1999 event. Last year, he cemented his place among cycling's all-time greats by becoming the first American since three-time champion Greg LeMond ((1986, 1989 and 1990) to claim back-to-back titles.

Armstrong climbed to the top of the podium on Sunday as the overall champion of this year's 2,149.90-mile Tour de France. But he effectively won the title with his climbing prowess in the famous mountain stages through the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Armstrong began to establish his dominance on July 17, winning the 10th stage from Aix-les-Bains to L'Alpe d'Huez.

Playing a game of mental poker, Armstrong gave the impression he was struggling during the 129.17-mile stage. That prompted rival Ullrich and his Deutsche Telekom team to push the pace in order to break Amstrong. But on the final climb to L'Alpe d'Huez, Armstrong turned around, glared at 1997 Tour de France winner Ullrich and simply left him behind.

But the U.S. Postal Service rider still had over 20 minutes to make up in order to catch Francois Simon of France and claim the yellow jersey as the Tour's overall leader.

Armstrong won the stage-11 time trial from Grenoble to Chamrousse on July 18 and reduced his gap with Simon by seven minutes.

The American took third place in the 12th stage from Perpignan to Ax-les-Thermes on July 20. But in breaking away from the pack, Armstrong made another statement to Ullrich. The defending champion surged away from his German foe just minutes from the finish line and Ullrich once again had no response.

Armstrong moved away from Ullrich with about 3 1/2 miles left on July 21 to win stage 13 and take over the yellow jersey for good.

Armstrong established his six-minute, 44-second winning margin in the overall standings on Friday by winning his fourth stage of the 2001 Tour, the 37.88-mile, stage-18 time trial from Montucon to Saint-Amand-Montron.

In addition to winning his 11th career stage victory, Armstrong won the final time trial of the Tour for the third straight year.

Joseba Beloki of Spain finished third in the overall standings for the second consecutive year. Andrei Kivilev of Kazakhstan took fourth and Igor Gonzalez Galdeano of Spain rounded out the top five.

France's Laurent Jalabert took home the red polka dot jersey as the best climber and Spain's Oscar Sevilla, who finished seventh in the overall standings, won the white jersey as the top rider under the age of 25.

The team title went to Spain's Kelme-Costa Blanca, which finished four minutes, 59 seconds ahead of national-rival O.N.C.E.-Euroski.

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