Mauricio Soler came free from the peloton before the first climb of the day and took full points available to him, taking the lead outright in the King of the Mountains from Rasmussen. He and Carlos Sastre, for whom it was something of a surprise that he was able to get away from the peloton easily as he was 5th in the GC at the beginning of the day, worked together to stay away as long as possible. They wound up being caught with 11 kilometers left to race by a group containing Rasmussen, Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, and numerous domestiques from their teams. Rasmussen came clear of this group on the way up the Aubisque to win the stage. It was thought at the time that this all but cinched his victory in the Tour, since only flat stages and an individual time trial remained, and that even a relatively weak time trialist like Rasmussen was unlikely to lose three to five minutes.