During the climb of the Col de Marie-Blanque, Dessel and Mercado again proved to be the strongest with Dessel coming through first as he had done on the two earlier climbs already: the polka dot jersey was his. Landaluze came closest to coming back as he was about 50 meters behind at some point during the descent, but the two leaders worked together not to let that happen. However, about 15 kilometres before the finish line, Mercado was hoping to make a deal with Dessel: since Dessel was going to be winning the yellow and polka dot jersey, he was hoping to be getting the stage win from Dessel in return for helping him. However Dessel wanted it all, so Mercado stopped helping and Dessel had to maintain the lead by himself to prevent Landaluze from coming back. In the end, Mercado sprinted past Dessel about 300 metres from the finish and won the stage. Landaluze finished third about a minute behind. Moreni, Rinero, Isasi and Vasseur also managed to stay in front of the pelont, the others were caught.