Congratulations to Carlos Sastre(isk)

Another Tour de France is in the bag. Carlos Sastre is the winner. Congrats to him - really. He's a fine bike rider; I have nothing against him.

Except the fact that he rides for Team CSC, the team managed by admitted doper Bjarne Riis, who deserves to be stripped of his '96 Tour title.

So be it. Cadel Evans blew it in the final time trial. He's usually good for a two-minute whomping of the likes of Sastre. But - while Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin on Versus kept fawning about Sastre riding outside himself - the fact is that Evans is usually good for a top-three place in the time trial, and he came in seventh. He blew it.

Had Christian Vandevelde not crashed in the mountains, he'd have likely edged out Evans for second place.

Evans needs to find another team, or get his sponsor to build a team around him winning. He was alone in the mountains, while CSC had Sastre and the Schleck brothers up until the final meters of the climbs, plus Fabian Cancellara and the indomitable Jens Voigt powering along on the lower stuff to bust up the peloton. Clearly, CSC had the best team - I'll give them that. And Riis proved to be a good tactician, sacrificing Frank Schleck's hold on the yellow jersey in favor of Sastre on the Alpe d'Huez, knowing that Schleck's time trialing skills are barely better than mine, and that Sastre provided the sponsor the best chance of yellow in Paris.

I don't begrudge Sastre. I just hate to see a Riis-led team gain any victory. As it is, they'll get the Tour win, the white jersey for the best young rider (Andy Schleck), and the team prize, which is virtually meaningless - but still, I wish they'd ride home with nothing.

The title of this thread alludes to the fact that Team Astana was excluded from this year's Tour due to the French bias against Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong. Had Astana been in this race, it would have been entirely different, and Riis and Sastre know it. Just as Ullrich won in '97, and Pantani in '98, after the Festina scandal took the biggest names out of the Tour, so this year's winner has to live with the knowledge that cycling's best weren't there, due to politics.

Astana would have been the strongest team in this year's Tour, being built solely around GC contention, with no sprinters in the mix. Either Alberto Contador - last year's Tour victor - or Levi Leipheimer would have won the Tour. Leipheimer would have hung tough in the climbs, and pounded the time trials. And Contador would have dominated the mountains. As a team, Astana is stronger than CSC. As a tactician, Bruyneel makes Riis look like a piker.

Oh well. Another Tour is in the bag. Another year of French manipulation to keep the Armstrong/Bruyneel legacy at bay. So be it. The Tour made money when Armstrong was winning seven straight times; not so since. Hopefully next year the organizers wise up and invite Astana. Then, truth will out.

Meantime, congrats to Sastre. I just hope you weren't taking a page from boss Bjarne's playbook, and juicing up for the big race of truth.