Andy gets the Tour trophy at last.

In what must have been a bittersweet moment, Andy was invited to Paris a couple of weeks ago to be presented with the "giant fruit bowl" trophy for winning the Tour in 2010.

"Finally after 4 years"  he tweeted.

Presumably it took them that long to wrestle it out of Contador's arms?

Or maybe they had a new one made - after all, who'd want a trophy that had someone else's name engraved on it?

I think I'd want a new one, wouldn't you?

On the one hand, it's very annoying to have to wait until you have retired from the sport before you get the trophy... but on the other hand, when he was still racing, his view was always "I don't want to win that way, I want to win on the road, on the day" and we all knew what he meant.

But now that there is sadly no chance that he will compete at the Tour again, well, maybe it doesn't feel so bad to accept the trophy.

*whispers: Ugly great clumpy thing, isn't it?!*

I don't know who took this photo, but it clearly was not an official photo - quite apart from the candelabra sprouting out of Andy's head, there's a very amateur "red eye" dazzle.  But we don't care, it's good to see him off the crutches, and smiling.