Huge crowds enjoyed the Tour prologue in London

The city staged the prologue and start of the first stage to great acclaim.

Mayor Ken Livingstone said: "We've made it clear we want [another] Grand Depart as soon as possible but that's probably not for another six years.

"But we have also been negotiating with them to see if we can get a stage coming through London before 2010."

Livingstone added that he would not be deterred from bringing the Tour back to London by the drug-related scandals which dogged this year's race.

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"It is a unique event, and I do not think a handful of riders breaking the rules diminishes the achievements of those who do not."

An estimated one million spectators lined the route of the Tour's prologue in London, with almost double that number watching the first stage which ended in Canterbury.