Looking back at 2011 Tour of 'firsts'
The Tour de France is so epic in scale and its grand finale in Paris so theatrical that it's always tempting to make sweeping declarations immediately afterward.
Some signature aspects of the 2011 race will be portrayed as breakthroughs -- the first champion from the Southern Hemisphere, the U.S.-based team that finally won a stage, a good showing by the home country's riders and a general sense that doping may be on the wane.
In fact, all of those developments are the product of incremental progress, not sudden leaps.
Australia's Cadel Evans was the runner-up in two of the closest Tours in history in 2007 and 2008, by a combined total of 81 seconds. Through much of his career, he has been criticized either for conservative riding -- following wheels in the mountains and waiting for his specialty, the time trial, to put the hammer down -- or for attacking at inopportune times. His quirky manner sometimes strained his interactions with the media and he seemed like the odd man out on his own teams.
