Carlos Sastre (CSC-Saxo Bank) won the 95th Tour de France on Sunday as Gert Steegmans (Quick Step) took the 21st and final stage on the Champs-Élysées.

2008 Tour de France, stage 21: Steegmans saved his team's Tour on the last stage.

Photo: Graham Watson

"I've dreamt of this since I was a child," said an emotional Sastre, who was surrounded by his wife and two children, Claudia and Yeday. "I'm beyond words — to be here with my family is really special."

Steegmans, too, was delighted, having finally snapped his team's winless streak at this year's Tour.

“Finally I've got a stage, and what a stage to win," he said. "To top it off we beat Columbia, which we are very happy about."

The 143km stage began with the traditional celebratory procession — riders swapping helmets with race moto drivers, sipping champagne with their directors and otherwise acting the fool — as the peloton ambled from Etampes toward Paris.

Stéphane Augé (Cofidis), who was in the very first break of the Tour three weeks earlier, opened the ball with a dig as the bunch reached the final go-round, eight laps and change of the famous 6.5km circuit up and down the Champs-Élysées, past the Louvre and across the Place de la Concorde.

The attacks came fast and furious, with assaults by Ivan Gutierrez (Caisse d'Epargne), Xavier Florencio Bouygues (Telecom) and Jerome Pineau (Bouygues Telecom).

French national champion Nicolas Vogondy (Agritubel) and Carlos Barredo (Quick Step) got away with 34km to race and took a scant 10 seconds on the bunch, controlled by CSC-Saxo Bank.

Jose Luis Arrieta (Ag2r-La Mondiale) then shot out of the bunch and tried to bridge to the leaders, but got stuck halfway there and soon found himself sucked back in as Jens Voigt (CSC) drove the chase along some 20 seconds behind the duo.

With 25km to race CSC had retrieved the break and the peloton took a moment to catch its collective breath before first Laurent Lefèvre (Bouygues Telecom), then Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner) jumped, the German being followed by Bram Tankink (Rabobank), Johan Van Summeren (Silence-Lotto) and Giampaolo Cheula (Barloworld). They took a very short-lived five-second advantage before the peloton stretched out its neck and gobbled them up.

Voigt was back in the driver’s seat with 18km to go, and Vogondy was yo-yoing off the back, paying the price for his audacity earlier. Then Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Columbia) had a go, dogged by Alexander Botcharov (Crédit Agricole) and Augé, and the trio took a 50-meter gap with two laps remaining.

As the CSC-powered chase closed in, Botcharov went it alone, only to be snatched up as the peloton approached the Place de la Concorde.

Then Arnaud Gerard (Française des Jeux) flew out of the bunch with one lap to go and the bell ringing. Nothing doing — he was retrieved before the turnaround, and teammate Philippe Gilbert tried his luck with a similar lack of success as Rabobank massed at the front for green jersey Oscar Freire.

Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) then launched, taking a 100-meter gap only to be sucked back in as the winless Quick Step squad began assembling a train for Steegmans.

And finally, Steegmans' train left the station on time. Led out perfectly by Matteo Tosatto and Steven De Jongh, he shot to the line ahead of Gerald Ciolek (Columbia) with Freire third.

"I knew the last bend, and that I had to be in first, second or third place if I was to have any chance of winning," said Steegmans. "Tosatto was so fast that I knew before I jumped out from behind his wheel that I was going to win.

"It's always great to win a stage. And it's a bit of a relief, although at the team meeting last night we were all thanked for our efforts during the Tour."

The Tour was made more difficult for Quick Step in the absence of Tom Boonen, who was told by Tour organizers in June not to show up after his positive test for cocaine.

"Unfortunately he wasn't here this year, that left a lot of pressure on me and Stijn (Devolder) to get a stage win," said Steegmans. "The pressure lasted a long time, too long. But the team were always there for me."

Once the dust settled on the Champs-Élysées, the 33-year-old Sastre became the seventh Spaniard in Tour history to don the final yellow jersey and the third consecutively after Oscar Pereiro (2006) and Alberto Contador (2007).

“Today was a really nice day today," said Sastre. "The team has done everything to make this Tour as easy as possible for me, and even as we came to Paris for the final stage, they continued to work for me.

2008 Tour de France, stage 21: Evans, the Sastres, and Kohl.

Photo: Graham Watson

“It was beautiful to have my children with me on the podium. It’s great to win the Tour de France, but my kids represent the biggest victory in my life. They are so important to me and I want to share that moment with them and have them close to me."

Sastre said his post-Tour schedule would include some racing in Belgium and Holland, followed by the Olympic Games and perhaps the Vuelta a España. And he offered some consoling words for his rival Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), who took the runner-up spot for the second consecutive year at 58 seconds back.

"For him to finish second again in the Tour de France … well, I feel for him. I have finished third and fourth and I know what it is to get close, but I believe he has every right to be happy because he did his best.”

As for Evans, he said his crash early on weakened him for the battles ahead.

“There were more dramas than I expected or wanted and fighting for every second at the end was exhausting," he said. "The crash before the race reached the Pyrenees was very taxing and it cost me a fair bit of strength; I used everything I had in the second week and perhaps that’s the price I paid in the third week. It showed in the final time trial. I rode consistently and reached all the time checks well, but I was just not riding as fast as the other guys. That’s the way it goes."

A surprise third place at 1:13 back went to Bernhard Kohl (Gerolsteiner), who also collected the polka-dotted mountains jersey.

"To find myself both on the podium and with the polka-dot jersey is incredible," said Kohl, who secured his jersey before the final climb of the race. "When I realized I had a chance of finishing on the Tour podium I gave it everything I could."

Andy Schleck won the white jersey for the best rider under 25 years of age. Considered a future yellow-jersey contender, the younger Schleck is keen to keep his feet on the ground.

"I still have plenty of work to do," said the 23-year-old, a runner-up at last year's Giro d'Italia. "The white jersey wasn't my objective this year — working for the team was. But next year I want to come back with better form."

2008 Tour de France, stage 21: The traditional in-the-pedals celebration.

Photo: Graham Watson

Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle) was the top American in fifth overall at 3:12.

Other jerseys and prizes
Mountains: Bernhard Kohl, Gerolsteiner.
Points: Oscar Freire, Rabobank.
Best young rider: Andy Schleck, CSC-Saxo Bank
Team: CSC-Saxo Bank
Most aggressive rider: Sylvain Chavanel, Cofidis.

Race notes
● Tick, tock: The CSC team controlled the peloton all day, but on the final lap, the yellow jersey found himself in a group that finished 14 seconds behind the stage winner and seven seconds behind Evans, pushing Sastre's winning margin under one minute.

● Spaniards in yellow:This Tour was close to the record of eight different riders to wear yellow, with seven different riders wearing the maillot jaune.
Stage 1-2: Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne)
Stage 3: Romain Feillu (Agritubel)
Stage 4-5: Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner)
Stage 6-9: Kim Kirchen (Columbia)
Stage 10-14: Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto)
Stage 15-16: Frank Schleck (CSC-Saxo Bank)
Stage 17-21: Carlos Sastre (CSC-Saxo Bank)

● So long, Steegmans: Stage winner Steegmans recently announced that this year would be his last with Quick Step. Katoucha, a Russian-backed team that aims to make a big impression on the peloton next year, signed up Steegmans during the Tour. "I'm still with Quick Step until December 30 this year, and I hope that this won't be the last present I'll give them before I leave," he said.
—Agence France Presse contributed to this story.

The 95th Tour de France
Stage 21
1. Gert Steegmans (B), Quick Step
2. Gerald Ciolek (G), Columbia
3. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank
4. Robbie McEwen (Aus), Silence-Lotto
5. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole
6. Julian Dean (NZ), Garmin-Chipotle
7. Stefan Schumacher (G), Gerolsteiner
8. Robert Forster (G), Gerolsteiner
9. Leonardo Duque (Col), Cofidis
10. Robert Hunter (RSA), Barloworld

Final overall
1. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC-Saxo Bank, 87:52:52
2. Cadel Evans (Aus), Silence-Lotto. at 0:58
3. Bernhard Kohl (A), Gerolsteiner, at 1:13
4. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank, at 2:10
5. Christian Vande Velde (USA), Garmin-Chipotle, at 3:05
6. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC-Saxo Bank, at 4:28
7. Samuel Sanchez (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 6:25
8. Kim Kirchen (Lux), Team Columbia, at 6:55
9. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Caisse d’Epargne, at 7:12
10. Tadej Valjavec (Slo), Ag2r-La Mondiale, at 9:05