LeMond felt confident before the 1991 Tour de France. He was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him. LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain. LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence. He held the yellow jersey for the next four days until Stage 12, a challenging mountain stage. LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain. He continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.