remaining as a whole for the first hour of racing after the attacks were closed down within minutes. It was not until a third of the way through the stage – some in – that a move was allowed to be established on the road, as rider Pierre Rolland, 's Jérôme Coppel and Lieuwe Westra of accelerated out of the peloton. They were later joined by five more riders as pairing Sylvain Chavanel and Stijn Vandenbergh, 's Dmitry Fofonov, Yaroslav Popovych of and Christophe Le Mével representing the team provided some assistance to the breakaway move. Coppel was the best-placed rider of the octet, as he was in fifteenth place overall overnight around four-and-a-half minutes down on race leader Bradley Wiggins (); as such, the breakaway's advantage was not allowed to gather momentum and the gap remained between two and two-and-a-half minutes for the majority of the stage. allowed to carry out most of the work in the peloton, with Wiggins keeping an eye on their rider Cadel Evans, who had made a late-race attack the previous day and gained time back to Wiggins. Coppel, Westra and Rolland, the break initiators, then went clear again on the second-category Côte de la Vernaz, but the peloton were still closing in on them, after chasing down a group that had got clear on the climb. Vincenzo Nibali () remained off the front, and tried to close down the leaders. Rolland and Coppel dropped Westra on the descent from the following Col du Corbier climb, where he was eventually joined by Nibali, but the solo move that he had put in was starting to show as he could not stay with Westra, and was eventually caught by the -led peloton with around remaining. Westra was caught not long after that as the lead duo's advantage was diminishing by the kilometre, as they held a half-minute lead into the final . 's Alexandre Geniez attacked out of the main group, and caught his two countrymen up the road but the breakaway was not to succeed as they were caught with to go. took the front in the hope of a second stage win for Daniel Moreno, but Fabrice Jeandesboz attacked in the final kilometre for but was closed down by Richie Porte, protecting his team leader Wiggins. Moreno and 's Luis León Sánchez battled it out for the stage honours, with Moreno edging out