Georges Speicher led the race from stage 12 on. In the mountains, Speicher struggled. He was dropped many times on the climbs, but was a good descender and got back to the lead group every time. Lemaire initially stayed close to Speicher, and was only 15 seconds behind in the general classification. l'Equipe wrote that with the help of his Belgian team, Lemaire could have challenged Speicher for the overall victory, especially thanks to the help of Jean Aerts. But the Belgian team was still divided between the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking cyclists, and Jean Aerts did not help Lemaire but went for his own success.