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Belgium's Gert Steegmans won a bunch sprint on the Champs-Elysees as Spaniard Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France on Sunday.

Steegmans benefited from an excellent lead-out by his Quick Step team-mates to beat Gerard Ciolek of Team Columbia by a comfortable margin on the cobblestones of central Paris.

Germany's Ciolek, a team-mate of quadruple stage winner Mark Cavendish, put in a late surge of pace but it was only enough to hold off green jersey Oscar Freire of Spain, who finished third.

The victory was 27-year-old Steegmans' first in this year's Tour and his second career victory in the Grande Boucle.

In the absence of compatriot Tom Boonen in this year's race, Steegmans carried the hopes of his QuickStep team in this year's race.

"It's unbelievable. Finally it happened to us. I'm just delighted that I finally won a stage and not somebody else," Steegmans told Eurosport on the finish line, referring to his team's first stage scalp of the Tour.

"We were saving something special for the final stage and then we just let it go. It was touch and go but we went really fast after the final bend and with 100m to go we knew it was ours."

Sastre became the third consecutive Spainard to win the world's biggest cycling race following his exploits on Alpe d'Huez and in Saturday's decisive time trial. He succeeds Oscar Pereiro, the 2006 de facto winner, and Alberto Contador, the 2007 champion.

"It's a dream coming true, I have been waiting so long for this," said Sastre. "Ever since I was little I've been thinking about this moment. After my Vuelta victory in 2005 I thought I could one day win the Tour. But I had to fight for it, get experience, and finally I have done it."

The 33-year-old beat Australian Cadel Evans (Silence Lotto), the pre-race favourite, by 58 seconds after Evans failed to cut his deficit in Saturday's time trial.

But Evans, who finished second last year after previous 5th- and 8th-place finishes, said he would be back next year to go one better.

"I have been on a good progression over the last four years and so if I can continue that, then sure, I will be back to try and win it," the 31-year-old said.

"I was lucky to be able to finish the race after my crash in the first week so it's enormous relief to even be here. But sure, I would have preferred to have won the race."

Surprise package Bernhard Kohl of Austria (Gerolsteiner) took third, at 1:13, after riding an excellent race. "I came with the hope of finishing in the top ten so to finish 3rd on the podium was more than I could have hoped for," said Kohl, 26.

The Austrian finished the race in the polka dot jersey as the king of the mountains while Rabobank's Freire became the first Spaniard in history to win the green jersey in the points competition for sprinters.

Sastre's team, Bjarne Riis' brilliant CSC outfit, won the award as the best team, while CSC's Andy Schleck, the 23-year-old Luxembourger, won the white jersey as the best young rider.

Winner of Friday's stage 19, Sylvain Chavanel of Cofidis, won the award for the most combative rider, the Frenchman having ridden more than 415km in breakaways during the three-week event.

The Tour's showpiece on the Champs-Elysees was soured with news that Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Fofonov of Credit Agricole tested positive after stage 18 for a banned stimulant.

Fofonov finished the race 19th in the overall standings.

The latest doping scandal follows the positive tests of Spaniards Moises Duenas and Manuel Beltran, and two-time stage winner Riccardo Ricco of Italy, for the blood-booster EPO.

Felix Lowe / Eurosport