Looking gaunt, his cheeks hollow after riding 2,232.7 miles across France and its mountains for three weeks, Armstrong still could smile at the end.

President Bush called to congratulate his fellow Texan for “a great triumph of the human spirit,” saying the victory was “a testament not only to your athletic talent, but to your courage.”

Armstrong’s 5-year-old son, Luke, delivered a different message.

“Daddy, can we go home and play?” the boy whispered to him as he stepped off the podium.

Armstrong choked up on the podium and rock star girlfriend Sheryl Crow, wearing a yellow halter top, cried during the ceremony.

“This is the way he wanted to finish his career, so it’s very emotional,” she said.

Armstrong set the record last year with his sixth win — one more than Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, Belgian Eddy Merckx and Spaniard Miguel Indurain — and No. 7 confirmed him as one of the greatest cyclists ever.

Armstrong mentioned Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan and Andre Agassi as personal inspirations.

“Those are guys that you look up to you, guys that have been at the top of their game for a long time,” he said.

As for his accomplishments, he said, “I can’t be in charge of dictating what it says or how you remember it.

“In five, 10, 15, 20 years, we’ll see what the legacy is. But I think we did come along and revolutionize the cycling part, the training part, the equipment part. We’re fanatics.”

Armstrong’s last ride as a professional — the closing 89.8-mile 21st stage into Paris from Corbeil-Essonnes south of the capital — was not without incident.

Alessandro Trovati / AP Lance Armstrong signals seven for his seventh straight Tour de France victory Sunday.

Three of his teammates slipped and crashed on the road coming around a bend just before they crossed the River Seine. Armstrong, right behind them, braked and skidded into the fallen riders, using his right foot to steady himself and stay on the bike.

His teammates, wearing special shirts with a band of yellow on right shoulder, recovered and led him up the Champs-Elysees at the front of the pack.

Vinokourov surged ahead of the main pack to win the last stage. He had been touted as one of Armstrong’s main rivals at the start of the Tour on July 2, but like others was overwhelmed by him.

Armstrong donned his 83rd and last yellow jersey in Paris. Only Merckx — with 111 — won more.

Slide show   American Idols From Armstrong to Ali to Jordan to Woods, view images of the greatest athletes in American history.

Armstrong’s departure begins a new era for the 102-year-old Tour, with no clear successor. His riding and his inspiring comeback from testicular cancer attracted new fans — especially in the United States — to the race, as much a part of French summers as sun cream, forest fires and traffic jams down to the Cote d’Azur.

Millions turned out each year, cheering, picnicking and sipping wine by the side of the road, to watch Armstrong flash past in the yellow jersey, the famed “maillot jaune.”

Cancer survivors, autograph hunters and admirers pushed, shoved and yelled “Lance! Lance!” outside his bus in the mornings for a smile, a signature or a just word from the champion.

He had bodyguards to keep the crowds at bay — ruffling feathers of cycling purists who sniffed at his “American” ways.

NBC SPORTS From Thys to Merckx to Armstrong, the Tour's greatest riders.

Some spectators would shout obscenities or “Dope!” To some, his comeback from cancer and his uphill bursts of speed that left rivals gasping in the Alps and Pyrenees were too good to be true.

Armstrong insisted that he simply trained, worked and prepared harder than anyone. He was drug-tested hundreds of times, in and out of competition, but was never found to have committed any infractions.

Armstrong came into this Tour saying he had a dual objective — winning the race and the hearts of French fans. He was more relaxed, forthcoming and talkative than last year, when the pressure was on to be the first six-time winner.

NBC SPORTS Timeline of Lance Armstrong's rise from cancer survivor to Tour de France king.

Some fans hung the Stars and Stripes on barriers that lined the Champs-Elysees on Sunday. Around France, some also urged Armstrong to go for an eighth win next year— holding up placards and daubing their appeals in paint on the road.

Armstrong, however, wanted to go out on top — and not let advancing age get the better of him.

“At some point you turn 34, or you turn 35, the others make a big step up, and when your age catches up, you take a big step down,” he said Saturday after he won the final time trial, his only stage victory this year. “So next could be the year if I continued that I lose that five minutes. We are never going to know.”

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