Armstrong's bid for one for the road fails - but he deserves a chapeau for his efforts

LANCE Armstrong's Tour de France career is all but over - the Boss has been reduced to mortality this year and his rivals didn't even afford him the swansong he so wanted.

THE BOSS: Lance Armstrong didn't get the farewell win he wanted - but his efforts demonstrated his champion spirit

Despite blazing a trail of barn-burning destruction through France for seven consecutive years, his peers - once his minions - did not reward his lung-busting efforts in the biggest mountain stage of the Tour so far, and the Texan had to settle for sixth in stage 16.

He has never completely been accepted by the peleton who treated his dominance of the Tour with equal disdain and admiration and L'Equipe the French newspaper, widely regarded as the voice of the Tour, have never completely warmed to Mellow Johnny - a nickname given to Armstrong in reference to the maillot jaune.

L'Equipe have on more than one occasion carried articles purporting Armstrong as a drugs cheat - a cloud that continues to darken the skies above his head - and in 2005 they carried  the headline ‘the Armstrong lie'.

Armstrong however, would have it no other way. Few can deny that his critics and his doubters have spurred him on across his career and with regards to missing out on a stage win on Wednesday, the 38-year-old has time and again called for ‘no gifts' to be doled out in the peleton.

And his assessment of his bid for one for the road, where Frenchman Pierrick Fedrigo took the win, was frank and honest.

"It was full gas all day," he said. "I focused on the stage, tried to get up in the moves and it didn't work - I wasn't fast enough in the end.

"Fedrigo's very fast and he deserved to win. Lance Armstrong is over in about four or five days."