With only three stages to go in the Tour, Vietto was still in the lead, 94 seconds ahead of Pierre Brambilla. The nineteenth stage was an individual time trial, the longest in Tour history. In that stage, Vietto lost considerable time, and Brambilla took over the lead in the general classification. Vietto performed worse than expected; there was speculation about why he performed so badly, and some said it was because of the motorcycle accident of a friend, while others said it was because he drank a bottle of cider during the time trial.