The tour is like all of the Olympic’s athletic events rolled into one. Thickly muscled dashers have to hang tough in the mountains, the domestiques and the lead-out men struggle manfully as role-players, fluffers tasked with protecting General Classification contenders and sprinters alike. More than in any other race, the competitors – or at least the great majority of them – just seem genuinely happy to make it to the finish line.

But above all others it is the marathoners who are exalted and this year Alberto Contador is bathed in golden glory after holding off Andy Schleck, the third time the Spaniard has had the yellow on his back in Paris.

So, the Tour is over, or maybe it was already over before the final stage begun. Not because the margin was insurmountable rather the final day is homage to the status quo rather than dash to the death. No one attacks on the run to Paris, unless you’re a sprinter of course, then you’re allowed to race, but only once you get to the cobblestones. Makes perfect sense…

For the uninitiated the Tour can be a chaotic beast –a puzzling milieu of races-within-races, convention, tradition and rules-that-are-not-quite-rules – but none are as bizzaro as the final stage being one in which those competing for the GC don’t attack. At the end of 19 days of racing and 3,500km, we were left to see Contador and Schleck, separated by only 39 seconds, feign competition for the cameras, laugh good naturedly then drink more champagne. Surely the public want a climax not a forgone conclusion?

That said Contador was a deserved winner. It doesn’t matter that some see the victory as slightly stained by his failure to win a stage, the tour is about consistency over the distance and the skinny Spaniard’s metronomic legs were the best.

Best name of the tour: Canadian Ryder Hesjedal, so perfect you’d think it was an adopted nom de guerre.

Best crowd moment: What other sport has the crowd the Tour does? The unbridled pandemonium, screaming, snarling, flag waving, running beside and jumping in front of the riders is something to behold. Never was this more acute than on the climb up the Col du Tourmalet. It was frightening even on the TV.

¡Viva España! A Spaniard has worn the yellow in Paris the last five years in a row, combine that with victory in the World Cup and maybe sporting success is enough to stave off the Broke Country Blues, at least for a while.

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Overnight the narrative arcs of both the cricket and the Tour were startlingly similar. From a strong position, a descent into despair.

All the talk before Stage 9 was of Schlek and Contador. Though in the yellow, Cadel was kind of flying under the radar, was he insulted or happy about it? In the end it must have been a heavy radar he was under as Cadel was dropped at the start of the Col de la Madeleine and struggled to the finish more than eight minutes to the bad. The killer day took its emotional toll and Cadel broke down in tears before declaring his tour over and revealing he had a fractured elbow. Having started the Tour so brightly Cadel, was finished.

The surge of Schlek and Contador up the final climb in pursuit of the breakaway destroyed the peloton. It was all that is amazing about the tour. Suffering on an imaginable scale, Schlek attacking Contador before they agreed a pact and worked together. Need makes for the strangest bedfellows though agreements mean nothing in sight of the finish and the mad dash for the line as the two caught the lead group with one kilometre to go was incredible to watch. The tour is now a two-horse race.

Over at the cricket, Australia started spritely enough and though Watson (20) and Ponting (26) fell cheaply, the eternal Katich and new No. 4 Clarke settled in so at 2-171 in the over before tea things looked rosy. Enter disaster of broken-elbow proportions. Asif’s wicket-maidens either side of the break started a collapse that had the Aussies plunge to 9-229, saved from a one-day rout by bad light rather than stoic tail ending. Inauspicious were the debut innings of gloveman Paine (7) and Hope For The Future Smith (1) to say the least. And this was a side supposed to bat as deep as Barry White’s voice – not the ideal start on the road to the Ashes.

The night’s results had an uncomfortable symmetry indeed.

Cycling – cricket connection; how much does Phil Liggett sound like an ever-so-slightly more excited Richie Benaud? More than a coincidence.

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