Marcel Kittel of team Giant-Shimano dramatically won the final sprint along the distinguished Champs-Élysées on Sunday evening, whilst Astana rider, Vincenzo Nibali won the Tour comfortably.

Despite the German rider executing an admirable sprint to overtake Alexander Kristoff (Lotto belisol) and Ramunas Navardauskus (Garmin-Sharp), all eyes were on team Astana as they escorted yellow jersey holder Vincenzo Nibali across the line with smiles beaming across their faces. 

As reality eventually dawned on the Italian, tears of joy rolled down his cheeks. "It's the most important moment, the most beautiful moment. Standing on this podium on the Champs-Élysées is something unique and standing on the highest step is even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined," he said. Unlike Nibali's yellow jersey predecessor, Chris Froome, Nibali stuck to his native tounge for the majority of the speech, but signed off in French, saying: "Merci à tous les français e merci a tout le monde" or "Thanks to all of France and thanks to everyone" roughly. 

Nibali was joined on the podium by the winners of the three other jerseys; Rafal Majka (Saxo-Tinkoff) won the king of the mountains polka dot jersey, Peter Sagan (Cannondale) won the green points jersey and the white young rider jersey was worn with pride by Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr). Pinot also joined Nibali for a second time on the podium, but this time alongside compatriot Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R) who finished second in the overall classification.

"Finally I can say it: I've won the Tour de France. And finally I can start to recover my energies. It was a huge effort. I had the jersey from the second day and that's not easy," he said. Adding this magnificent achievement to previous wins, Nibali is now only the 6th rider in history to havewon all three of the grand tours (Giro d'Italia-2013, Vuelta a Espana-2010). "Soon I'll be chasing big objectives again," Nibali said. "I've always like the big stage races, but there are classics and world championships too."

With Nibali retaining possession of the maillot jaune from the second stage in Yorkshire, he's been in the thick of all the action surrounding him from early doors. He was amongst the drama from stage one in fact, as he saw home-town hero, Mark Cavendish crash out of the race with a serious collar bone injury; He finished 34th on the first stage. However, the sicilian looked showed off his ambition by winning the second stage in an uphill finish in Sheffield ahead of two serious contenders in former winner, Chris Froome of Sky and Alberto Contador of Tinkoff-Saxo (another rider to have won all three Grand Tours). This win was to be the first of four for the Astana rider, only losing the overall leader's jersey for one stage to Tony Gallopin (Lotto Belisol) on Stage 9.

Then came the mountains. As well as a second stage victory for Nibali, his luck seemed to get a little bit better with potential rival, Alberto Contador forced to pull out with a broken leg. The mountainous terrain continued to test many riders to their llimit, but once again, Nibali was unnaffected as he took on the Alps on stage 13 and the Pyrenees on stage 18. With both Froome and Contador now out, it was almost a walk in the park for the Astana man. 

Nibali wasn't the only focal point however, as plently more enthralling racing took place too. One eyecatching battle was the battle for the podium. Péraud, Pinot and Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) were all locking antlers in an effort to take second or third place - the first French double podium since 1997. At a ripe age of 37, Peraud overcame his younger compatriot with a 13 second advantage, even though he suffered from a late puncture on the penultimate stage. Unfortunately for Romain Bardet, he narrowly missed out on a podium position. Luck didn't seem to go the way of the Ag2r rider, as he experienced various punctures and issues with his bike. He even said: “Three weeks of non-stop work and now this... Everything got broken to pieces with two kilometres to go. It didn't go well today. I didn't have any news until I punctured. That's sport. To miss the podium by two seconds is really frustrating. When you cross the line, it's a maximum effort by everyone. I had never ridden a time trial that long but I think that without my puncture I would have secured my fifth place. I'm in the wheel of Jean-Christophe for whom I have enormous respect,” after he suffered from a puncture on stage 20. 

Some other news to come from the 101st edition of the Tour De France is that, sadly, Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing) rode his last stage yesterday. The 42 year old attacked on the 6th lap around Paris, and unsurprisingly, the peloton allowed him to have his moment. ITV cycling tweeted: "The word legend is thrown around all too often these days, but that is exactly what @thejensie is. Hat [sic]," giving an insight to how much he is loved in the cycling community. Voigt will ride in the Tour of Utah and race in Colarado before he finishes his illustrious career later this year. 

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