2007 Tour de France Alberto Contador in the yellow jersey as the leader, Cadel Evans in second, and Levi Leipheimer in third, were separated by only 2:49, with both Evans and Leipheimer recognized as far superior time trialists to Contador. In the end, each rider held his place after the final time trial, but with considerably slimmer margins, as the Tour ended with the smallest-ever spread of only 31 seconds among the top three riders. Alberto Contador also won the young rider classification, indicated by the white jersey, as the best young (under age 25) rider. A total of 21 teams were invited to
Doping at the Tour de France in which Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times (1999–2005), Fernando Escartín is the sole rider not to be implicated in a doping scandal. With "20 of the 21 podium finishers in the Tour de France from 1999 through 2005 directly tied to likely doping through admissions, sanctions, public investigations or exceeding the UCI hematocrit (a blood test to discover EPO use) threshold", Escartin's third-place finish in the 1999 Tour de France stands as the lone of the 21 podium finishes that was untainted, during the years (1999–2005) in which Lance Armstrong finished the Tour de France in