The 2nd hilltop finish at Alpe d’Huez in stage eighteen was the final chance to gain time in the high mountains. The stage was won by Zoetemelk with an advantage of +0:40 over Van Impe. Zoetemelk also managed to drop Hinault near the end of the stage and cut his lead to just under two minutes prior to the final ITT. Continuing on his impressive performance from the day before was Agostinho who finished both in 4th place on the stage, and also climbed up a spot to 4th place in the overall standings, albeit more than twenty minutes behind Hinault. Stage nineteen was won by Didi Thurau who outsprinted Jacobs, Demeyer and Hinault to claim the win. Then during stage 20 Serge Parsani got to the line two seconds slower than the speedy Dutchman Gerrie Knetemann, but Knetemann was given a ten second penalty for drafting a team car earlier in the stage, which gave Parsani the stage win by eight seconds. The final ITT was in the city of Dijon where Hinault seemingly clinched his 2nd consecutive Tour de France victory building his lead over Zoetemelk to +3:07. The closest rider from within the rest of the field was Agostinho, who jumped into the final podium position but was still nearly twenty-five minutes behind. Stage twenty-two was won in a head to head sprint by Gerrie Knetemann over Giovanni Battaglin and in Stage twenty-three Hinault was able to best Demeyer at the finish line.