Ocaña won the first mountain stage and took the yellow jersey, while Thévenet won the second mountain stage. L'Equipe newspaper predicted a duel. However, on the third mountain stage, Ocaña delivered a crushing defeat to his rivals. Fuente attacked early on the Col du Télégraphe and a group of favourites was established. On the following climb of the Col du Galibier, Ocaña led. After the descent, Ocaña and Fuente had a minute on Thévenet, while the next group were five minutes and 30 seconds behind. Fuente suffered a flat tire and Ocaña won by 52 seconds over Fuente, almost seven minutes over Thévenet & Martinez, and 20 minutes & 24 seconds over Zoetemelk, Van Impe and Poulidor. Ocaña then led the general classification by nine minutes over Fuente, ten minutes on Thevénet, with Zoetemelk fifth, over 23 minutes behind. Ocaña then won the stage 12 time trial. A duel in the Pyrenees was expected between Ocaña and Fuente but Ocaña won the longest stage in the Pyrenees. L'Equipe had the headline Ocaña appuie sur l'accélérateur translated as Ocaña steps on the accelerator. Ocaña won the last individual time trial and also the mountain stage to Puy-de-Dôme, eventually winning the race with 15 minutes over Bernard Thévenet. He also won the combativity award. After his win, Ocaña declared that after the 1974 Tour de France, he wanted to try the hour record.