It was like Ted Williams hitting a home run in his final at-bat. John Elway going out a Super Bowl MVP. Michael Jordan sinking that jumper from the top of the key to put away Utah and then walking off the court into retirement. Yesterday, Lance Armstrong rode around the Champs-Elysees wearing the yellow jersey of the Tour de France winner. He retired on top of his sport.

This is as unprecedented in cycling as his becoming the first rider to win the Tour six times last year. Four men had won the Tour five times before Armstrong did it – Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64), Eddy Merckx (1969-72, 1974), Bernard Hinault (1978-79, 1981-82, 1985), and Miguel Indurain (1991-95) – but each was in the end humbled by a younger rider in his quest for six. Each went out of the Tour a beaten man. There will be no such memories of an Armstrong. Since his return to strength from testicular cancer, he has won the Tour de France seven straight times.

Armstrong announced his retirement in April, and as he prepared for this final Tour, he said in interviews that he was comfortable with retiring no matter where he finished in the race. There was no reason to believe him. Armstrong is a driven man. He absolutely wanted to go out as no one else ever had.

He made that clear on Saturday in the individual time trial in Saint-Etienne. By then, only injury could’ve kept him from winning a seventh Tour. He had nothing to gain by going full out. His overall lead was a comfortable one and he had been the race’s dominant force, but Armstrong had not won a stage in the 2005 Tour. He’d been second, by two seconds, to David Zabriskie (CSC) in the opening time trial. Alejandro Valverde (Iles-Balears) rode around him at the line of the mountaintop finish in Courchevel. And though he beat all the main contenders on Ax-3-Domaines,

Georg Totschnig (Gerolsteiner) had enough of a lead from a long breakaway to take the stage by 56 seconds.

During Saturday’s time trial, Ivan Basso (CSC) was faster by seven seconds at the first time check, but he slowed considerably on the tight turns of the descent. By the second time check, Armstrong was up on both Basso and archrival Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile), who had also pushed past Basso. Armstrong was a delight to watch as he handled a treacherous, technical course of hills. His victorious ride was a perfect reminder of who Lance Armstrong is.

He is a racer who meets expectations. Everyone says he will win the time trial, and he goes out and does it. He was the pick to win the Tour, and so he does. He never wants to fail, and his determination makes the spectacular look normal. But there is no secret. His formula for winning the Tour is famous: “One attack, two good time trials.” All his rivals know what to expect, know when and where he will attack, know how he will use his team. They simply can’t put this knowledge to use.

On stage 8 to Gerardmer, Armstrong found himself isolated on the final climb, the Col de la Schlucht. His team had disintegrated, leaving him open to attacks by Basso and Ullrich, who still had teammates to help them. They were licking their chops at the thought. Attacks came and went, but Armstrong rode calmly, matching every acceleration.

On stage 14, Ullrich’s T-Mobile team did everything it could to blow the race apart 40 kilometers and two major climbs from the finish at Ax-3Domaines. Repeated attacks and a fast tempo devastated the peloton and finally only Armstrong, Basso, and Ullrich were left up front. The American pushed the pace, shedding first the German and finally sprinting away from the Italian. Great tactics by T-Mobile that in the end helped only Armstrong.

Such attacks were common during the 2005 Tour as Armstrong’s rivals took their last shots at finding a weakness in the six-time champion. He was utterly collected throughout, never seeming to be at his strength’s limit. All of his rivals were decidedly dropped at some point over the three weeks by the American, and none of them can feel that they were anything but soundly beaten.

This realization may be particularly disappointing for them, as Armstrong didn’t always appear as strong as he was last year. As the Tour got rolling, he rode with the best racers, but attacked them less often and less impressively than in years past. He never looked pressed, but he also never put the hammer down and shed the rest of the riders. In discussing his loss to Valverde at Courchevel, Armstrong said, “I tried to get rid of those guys [Valverde, Francesco Mancebo (Iles-Balears), and Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank)], but maybe it’s not like the old days when you make one attack and you ride them off to the finish. Perhaps I’ve lost some of that explosiveness.” Even when he was looking strong in the last time trial, Armstrong only beat Ullrich by 23 seconds. For comparison, he beat him by 1:01 in the closing time trial of the 2004 Tour.

At 33, Armstrong is the oldest Tour champion since Fausto Coppi in 1952. Only three riders won the Tour at a more advanced age: Gino Bartali at 34 in 1948, Henri Pelissier, also 34, in 1923, and Firmin Lambot, who won the Tour in 1922 at the grand old age of 36. Time is passing, and Armstrong has made the difficult but correct choice to leave the sport he loves.

By retiring on top, Armstrong has also dealt a blow to his historical rivals. He will live forever in yellow, always having just dispatched his would-be heirs with shocking ease. With most of cycling’s champions, there is a flashbulb memory of defeat. Anquetil being beaten in the time trial at Vals-les-Bains in 1966 and then stepping off his bicycle to abandon his final Tour two days later on the road to Briancon; Merckx being passed by a flying Bernard Thevenet on the Pra-Loup in 1975; Hinault unable to keep up with Greg LeMond’s group on the road to Superbagneres in 1986; Indurain, after ruling the race for five years, suddenly blowing four kilometers from the top of the climb to Les Arcs in 1996.

These snapshots were the codas of the great eras of Tour de France history. The snapshot for the ending of the Armstrong Era is a man in the yellow jersey on a podium in Paris. He’s smiling broadly at his three children, looking forward with no regrets to some quiet time at home with them.

Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France yesterday, but also won one last great race by retiring at the right moment. He put it perfectly in his speech from the podium yesterday: “Vive le Tour. Forever.”