23/07/00: Lance Armstrong of the United States retained his Tour de France crown today as the epic race finished on the Champs Elysees before massed crowds in Paris.

The 21st and final stage, a 138km ride around Paris starting at the Eiffel Tower and finishing with a dozen laps of the Champs Elysees, went to Italy's Stefano Zanini, who won a mass sprint for the line in 3hr 12min 36sec to edge out Eric Zabel of Germany and Latvia's Romans Vainsteins.

"It's a great day, a wonderful feeling," said Mapei's Zanini, 31, after his stage triumph - the first of his career.

Lance Armstrong, the winner of the Tour de France.

Texan Armstrong, who defied the doubters 12 months ago when he returned after fighting off testicular cancer to become only the second US winner of the event after three-time winner Greg LeMond, headed off nearest challenger and 1997 winner Jan Ullrich of Germany by 6min 2sec.

Festina's Joseba Beloki of Spain placed third overall on his Tour debut, 10min 4sec adrift of Armstrong.

Both Zanini and Armstrong milked huge applause from thousands of bystanders who cheered all the riders' efforts at the end of an exhausting Tour which stretched over three weeks and 3,662km.

Armstrong's wife Kristin watched the race and said afterwards she could now relax with victory finally in the bag.

"It's just incredible. It's a great day for our family - it's just fantastic. I can finally breathe easy. I was always afraid there might be an accident - but I was always confident, too. So was he," she said.

Armstrong's triumph emphatically proved his biggest rival Jan Ullrich's camp right as the German's Telekom team chief Walter Godefroot said after the first mountain stage 12 days ago that the Texan was out on his own and would win the event.

That day alone, Armstrong put almost three-and-a-half minutes between himself and Ullrich. The final results will only stand officially once the results of anti-EPO blood tests carried out at the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory in the Paris suburbs are made known.

To date, no riders have tested positive this year for banned substances, in stark contrast to two years ago, when the doping scandal which saw the Festina team expelled threatened the event's very existence.

The sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI) noted that "for certain products, the delay can be a month" before traces of some products show up.

However, race organiser Jean-Marie Leblanc earlier praised this year's edition as "the most wonderful I have ever followed" and said he dared hope the doping spectre had been all but laid to rest.

"This is the real renaissance for me - though that's not to say doping has come down to zero," Leblanc added. "Clearly the peloton have taken things to heart."

Hours before the race reached its traditional climax on what the French call the most beautiful avenue in the world, some 11,000 hobby cyclists traced part of the course in an early morning 28.5km ride.

In fact, some of the hobby pedallers were rather better known than others, as they included former Tour legends Eddy Merckx of Belgium, Bernard Hinault of France and Spain's Miguel Indurain - all of whom won the toughest race in sport five times.

Going into the race the the riders had set the fourth-fastest average speed in Tour history of 39.446kph, compared to final average of 40.726kph 12 months ago.

Curiously, given the implications of the 1998 doping scandal, the figure that year was 39.983kph but the figure has remained almost constant since reaching 39.504kph back in 1992

The riders were in no mood to set a new record on Sunday as the thermometer climbed above 30 degrees Celsius as they sped round Paris' baking streets - though the day had begun overcast.

Australia's Robbie McEwen, riding for Farm Frites, was determined the whole day should not be a procession and he took the points at the first sprint after 22.9km ahead of Francaise des Jeux rider Magnien.

McEwen, 28, won the final stage last year for his only career stage win to date but could not keep pace with Zanini.-AFP