Cyril Dessel, the holder of the yellow jersey, was already about 2 minutes behind at that time. In the valley that came between the Col du Portillon and Pla-de-Beret, Arroyo and Cunego broke away from that elite group and closed the gap to de la Fuente, but they were all caught even before the climb towards Pla-de-Beret. On the last climb it was due to some extraordinary work by Michael Boogerd that the group kept getting smaller and smaller, with only five riders remaining in the end: