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Le Tour de France is over for 2008. Last night I watched the last 145 riders head into the Champs-elysees for the last stage and the sprint at the end. Cadel finished in the bunch, along with Carlos Sastre who had retained the yellow jersey after a disappointing time trial by Evans and a blistering effort by Sastre sealed the result for him. Cadel finished in second place just 1 minute and 5 seconds behind the leader.

Michael and I were cheering him on from the comfort of our home theatre, but the big screen and surround sound couldn't disguise the fact that the time splits were not small enough for Cadel to win. Sastre rode out of his skin to produce probably the best time trial of his life. He deserves the win.

Another reason Cadel probably didn’t win and Sastre did was the difference between the two teams. The Silence Lotto team worked very hard for Evans, but they were underpowered and not able to help enough when he needed it. I think Popvych’s performance was very disappointing. On the pother hand the CSC team was amazing. they were the best team on the tour by over an hour of combined riding, in the mountains and on the stages they needed to they had a coordinated steam train going up the front assisting Sastre and also Frank Schleck who had the yellow jersey himself for a number of stages.

At the end of the day I think Cadel did an amazing job, and deserves a better team. Given the huge number of Aussie who both ride and work in the Tour, including 3 teams managed by Aussie's, I don’t know why we cant have an Aussie sponsored and staffed team. They say you need $15-20 million for that. Some major company here like Dick Smith or Harvey Norman or Westpac Bank or something like that could surely afford this. If not, Ask every Aussie to give 1 dollar – there's 20 million people here! I hope that next year Cadel can get a great team around him to ride to a yellow jersey in Paris.