On the final climb US Postal led the chasers. The group quickly started losing riders, again including Voeckler. By the time the gap had been cut to 1'30" the chasing group had shrunk to just eleven, notables were Armstrong, Ullrich, Leipheimer, Mancebo and stage 12's winner Basso. By the time Voight was caught, Armstrong's group was just four - himself, teammate Jose Azevedo, Georg Totschnig and Ivan Basso. Rasmussen was quickly caught too, but Armstrong powered on and shed Totschnig and both the previous leaders. Azevedo led the other two into the last 8 km before falling away, by 5 km to go the two leaders were 45" ahead of Totschnig (Azevedo was 1'40" behind). Basso led out the last kilometre but in the final 100 m Armstrong passed him for his first stage win of the 2004 Tour and his 19th career Tour victory. Ullrich came in 2'42" later, Voeckler was 13th at 4'42" and kept the yellow jersey by 22".