After 14 long stages in this year's Tour de France, an American finally landed a spot on the podium as Andrew Talansky of Team Garmin-Sharp finished third in Saturday's 191 kilometer race.
Talansky, 24, became the first American to crack into the top three of a Tour de France stage since Christian Vande Velde finished second during stage 15 of last year's Tour.
Talansky crossed the finish line just a fraction of second behind Michael Albasini of Switzerland and Stage winner Matteo Trentin, who gave Italy its first victory in the Tour after clocking 4:14:11.
For American cycling, Talansky's recent performance serves as a breakthrough for an organization that was rocked by the Lance Armstrong doping scandal earlier this year.
After years of proclaiming his innocence to anti-doping body and athletic commissions, Armstrong admitted in January that he had abused performance enhancing drugs during the peak of his biking career.
With Armstrong's admission, not only was the biker's record-breaking seven consecutive Tour de France Championships stripped away from him, so too was a piece of dignity from American cycling, which has produced numerous cycling champions, even before Armstrong began his epic run in France.
However, there's no doubt that Talansky's third place finish in Stage 14 is a feel-good moment for all American cycling enthusiasts, and hopefully, it will start to rebuild American cycling's name in the international arena.
Here's the photo finish of Saturday's neck-to-neck dash towards Lyon.
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