CYCLING:ADDING YET another triumph to Spain's year of sporting glory, Carlos Sastre mounted the top step of the Tour de France podium yesterday. The seventh Spanish rider to win the race, and the third in the last three years, he was cheered by a crowd that had lined the barricades for several hours before the arrival of the 145 surviving riders, a demonstration of the public's refusal to turn its face against an event battered by an endless series of scandals.

Since 2006 the race has not truly been won until at least four days after the riders cross the finishing line on the Champs-Elysees. Fans of the sport - and perhaps a few riders, too - will be holding their breath following yesterday's prize-giving ceremony, remembering that two years ago Floyd Landis lost his yellow jersey and his career on the Thursday after the final stage, when the incriminating result of an earlier blood test was made public.

Last night Dmitriy Fofonov, a Kazakh rider with the Credit Agricole team, was disqualified from 19th place in the overall classification after being told that he had tested positive for a stimulant on Thursday's stage from Bourg-d'Oisans to Saint-Etienne.

On stage after stage of this year's race the riders passed hand-lettered signs that condemned doping, often while expressing an unshakeable loyalty to the event. Mon reve - un Tour propre, one of them read, and the dream of a clean race probably came a little closer.

The field was led on to the cobbles of a sunlit Champs-Elysees by a squadron of riders from Sastre's team, CSC-Saxo Bank, their handlebars symbolically wrapped with yellow tape. CSC are among the teams attempting to distance themselves from past suspicions by imposing an independently supervised programme of regular dope testing.

Meanwhile the French authorities have appeared strenuous in their efforts to expose guilty parties.

In truth, and without wishing to disparage or diminish the crowning achievement of his career, the 33-year-old Sastre is probably a transitional figure in the shift from the old, embedded doping culture to a future in which there will be no forgiveness for cheats.

L'Equipe, which is owned by the Tour's promoters and attempts to play a role as the conscience of the race, reminded its readers yesterday of the difficulty in giving wholehearted acclaim to a winner who was not only closely associated for several years with Manolo Saiz, a former directeur sportif implicated in the Spanish police's Operacion Puerto investigation, but rides for a team directed by Bjarne Riis, the imposing Dane who last year admitted winning the 1996 Tour on EPO.

In Spain, nevertheless, Sastre himself has been nicknamed Don Limpio, or Mr Clean.

There is no widespread desire to sling mud at him, not least because his success came as a direct result of the race's one truly courageous escape by a leading contender. Leaping away from the pack near the bottom of the Alpe-d'Huez on Wednesday, he crossed the line at the end of a gruelling 210km stage having established a lead of one minute 34 seconds over Cadel Evans, the pre-race favourite for the overall victory.

Evans' attritional approach has won him few admirers, and there was little lamentation when he failed to match his expectations in Saturday's time-trial.

Finally, there are those cautiously predicting that the past three weeks have seen a great institution take a step to rehabilitation.