Fresh legs: Adam Hansen during stage one. Credit:Getty Images Hansen, who is now one day away from extending his run to 18 finishes in the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, has raced this third week of the Tour with a huge saddle sore that he has not had lanced for fear of infection. "It's not as big as a tennis ball but as big as a golf ball … It puts my other two things to shame," says Hansen as he then sits down in the shade on an ice box outside his team bus after having raced the 22.5-kilometre, stage 20 time trial in Marseille. "It's not very good but I am surviving. I've had a good run with grand tours, never really had a major problem and now … I don't know why this … I just have to deal with it." While so close to finishing – the final and 21st stage, 103km from Montgeron to the Champs Elysees in Paris awaits the next day – Hansen admits that he came agonisingly close to succumbing to the pain and stopping.

"Yesterday … that long stage yesterday," in reference to Friday's 19th stage from Embrun to Salon de Provence, which at 222.5km was the longest of this Tour, Hansen said. "It was really tough for me. I just couldn't sit in the right position. "You pedal and sit on your thigh. You pedal and you ride on your other thigh. It's not very nice." Somehow Hansen found the strength of mind to keep turning the pedals on that hot and humid Friday that took the Tour from the Alps to the Vaucluse (a region in southern France). As he did in Saturday`s time trial, which he finished 152nd after riding out of the saddle for the most part, especially one cobblestoned stretch that he was told earlier would be "a couple of hundred metres" long but felt "like one kilometre".

And as he did again in Sunday`s finale into Paris on the 103km 21st stage from Montgeron to the Champs Elysees where the 6.5km finishing circuit that the peloton raced over eight times also included bone rattling cobblestones. So what kept Hansen going throughout his agony? The pride to finish a Tour? Keeping his grand tour record alive? Helping his German teammate, sprinter Andre Greipel try to win the Tour finale in a bunch sprint for the fourth time in his career? "It's everything," Hansen said, with his Lotto-Soudal team one of 11 of the 22 teams that had not yet claimed a stage victory. "We need to win a stage," Hansen says. "Andre has won it two times there [in Paris] and we want to do it again. "I have been on every single team with him since 2011, so we are almost family. I want to be there for him

"I want to try to do everything I can." Alas, Lotto-Soudal fell short. Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen (Lotto-Jumbo) won the stage, beating Greipel in second and Norwegian Edvald Boasson-Hagen (Dimension Data) third. British Tour leader Chris Froome (Sky) was 65th at the same time to secure a fourth Tour title, winning overall by 54s over Colombian Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) and 2m 2s over Frenchman Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale). Hansen, after helping Greipel, was 96th on the stage to finish 113th overall at 3 hours 22 minutes 31 seconds to Froome. So what is it like to finish the Tour?