Armstrong celebrated with baby son Luke

The final stage of the race was a traditional bunch sprint on the Champs Elysee in Paris.

As usual the stage featured small group breakaway attempts.

But the main pack brought the race back together and Zanini won the final surge to the line ahead of green jersey winner Erik Zabel and Romans Vainsteins.

All but six of the 128 survivors came into the last finish in the same time, including Armstrong, Zabel and King of the Mountains Santiago Botero of Columbia.

Zabel this year: He started the family celebration trend in 1996

Armstrong's wife Kristin spoke for the rider while he was handed his final yellow jersey.

"It's just incredible. It's a great day for our family - it's just fantastic," she said.

"I can finally breathe easy. I was always afraid there might be an accident - but I was always confident, too. So was he."

The final results will only stand officially once the results of anti-doping blood tests carried out at a Paris laboratory are made known.

This year there have been no positive drugs tests in the Tour, the first clean race in some years.

The three main jersey winners arrive in Paris

But the sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI) warned that "for certain products, the delay can be a month" before traces of some products show up.

Race organiser Jean-Marie Leblanc praised this year's race as "the most wonderful I have ever followed".

"This is the real renaissance for me - though that's not to say doping has come down to zero," Leblanc said.

"Clearly the peloton have taken things to heart."

Leblanc's optimism will have been dented by one final day disqualification, after Dutch rider Jeroen Blijlevens was thrown off the race for "particularly serious aggression".

The Polti sprinter, without a stage win this year, clashed at the finish with American Bobby Julich.

Blijlevens was 124th in the overall standings, allowing the riders behind him to each move up one place.

The thousands of fans included American supporters

Hours before the race reached its traditional climax on what the French call the most beautiful avenue in the world, some 11,000 amateur cyclists traced part of the course in an early morning 28.5km ride.

They were joined by former Tour legends Eddy Merckx of Belgium, Bernard Hinault of France and Spain's Miguel Indurain - all of whom won the toughest race in sport five times.