As Cadel Evans began to look back on the Tour de France that everyone but himself and Carlos Sastre was seemingly convinced he would win, the pain of again falling one place short sunk in.
''To come in two times second is a bit bitter,'' an exhausted Evans said after Saturday's stage 20 time trial from Cerilly to Saint Amand Montrond won by Germany's Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner).
Evans was seventh in the 'race of truth', 2min 5sec behind Schumacher and 29sec ahead of the 12th placed Sastre (CSC). But that was not enough against the 1min 34sec lead the 33 year-old Spaniard had on Evans, 31, who was second last year at 23sec to another Spaniard, Alberto Contador.
It again left Evans second as the 3560km Tour began its 21st and final stage last night a 143km stage from Etampes to the Champs Elysees in Paris.
Third overall on a podium line-up that was not expected to change in the last day was Austrian Bernhard Kohl (Gerolsteiner).
Kohl was a surprise ninth on the stage at 2min 21sec to Schumacher and blocked the challenge by Russian Denis Menchov (Rabobank) for a podium place with his sixth at 1min 55sec.
Evans's disappointment in not adding a first place finish to his second of last year, fourth in 2006 and eighth in his Tour debut in 2005 was as clear as the shock of so many who had backed him to win.
Belgian cycling great Eddy Merckx predicted he would beat Sastre by three minutes. From a poll of the 19 team managers still in the race, 15 gave Evans the nod.
Even Sastre's teammate, Australian Stuart O'Grady tipped Evans as he discussed his torn allegiances between wanting to see Sastre win or celebrate a first ever Australian victory, saying: ''I probably think Cadel will win the overall anyway.''
Sastre proved them all wrong.
And while some, such as Silence Lotto manager Marc Sergeant, said he sensed Evans was off-boil from the start, Evans gave his time trial performance the thumbs up.
''I had a good time trial. I rode a really good time trial and some other people just had an incredible, incredible time trial. What can I do?,'' Evans said. ''I had a really good start, I felt really good. They gave me I think it was after the first time check a [call of]: 'You've got the same time as Kohl'. That's where I really started to dig in.
''Then when we got to the [next] time check and [it is]: 'oh you've taken 10 seconds on Sastre'.
''I went: 'Hang on a second, I weigh 10 kilos more and I'm nearly a time trial specialist compared to a climbing specialist.''
Evans has been loyal in praise for his team throughout the race despite its obvious weakness. But he could still not hide his frustration for not having the climbers to help him in the mountains.
However, he conceded that he was not the only overall contender left without back-up against CSC which had numbers.
''That was in theory our biggest room for improvement. There's three of them there's one of us,'' he said, comparing Silence Lotto to CSC.
''They had a budget two, two and a half times ours. So of course they can buy better quality riders.
''But [look at] a team like Rabobank who have three times the budget. [Their leader, Denis] Menchov was isolated as well. On l'Alpe d'Huez, there was 10 of us.
There were three CSC [riders], two [from] AG2R and the rest of us were alone. Caisse d'Epargne, Rabobank ... they're strong teams.
''But [Alejandro] Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) was isolated and Menchov was isolated [too]. What do you do?''
Evans also played down any suggestion stage nine crash in the Pyrenees where he injured his left shoulder and sustained severe cuts, abrasions and bruising to his left side may have cost him the Tour.