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Earlier today Floyd Landis became the third American to win the Tour de France.

For those of you scoring at home - and if you're scoring the Tour, that's just sad - that makes eight straight wins by an American in the Tour and 11 out of the last 21. For those of you who like to tweek the French (Jeff Carlton, you know who you are) that's 11 wins by American since the last win by a Frenchman in the home country race - Bernard Hinault in 1985. How is that possible? That's a discussion for another day.

For now, and for quite a while in the future, we'll wonder how it was possible for Floyd Landis to over an 8:08 deficit in the last four stages of the race. While most of the American public seemed to gloss over this Lance-less Tour, Landis was creating a story almost as riveting as Armstrong's. Man defies his Mennonite upbringing to become a professional cyclist, then defies a decaying hip to become one of the best in the world, then defies a seemingly impossible time gap to win the world's most prestigous bike race. How's that for made for Hollywood?

I suspect that the media will play catchup now that Floyd has won and he'll be on numerous magazine covers and appear on numerous talk shows and probably ink an endoresement deal or two. But if you weren't following along during the three weeks of the tour, while the drama was unfolding, you missed one of the truly great sports stories. Sorry about that.

Those of us who did follow along can't help but feel giddy that we got a chance to witness one of the most dramatic tours in history. It feels good to know that despite everything - the loss of Lance and the loss of top contenders due to yet another doping scandal - the Tour is still relevant and - for those of us who like bike racing - a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

Contenders for next year? Final comments on the final standings? We'll save that for tomorrow. For now, let's just tip a glass of bubbly and say, "Vive Le Tour!"