Bernard Thevenet followed up his 7b stage win from the previous day with a solid fourth place showing in the decisive and brutally mountainous 237.5 km stage 8 (Méribel-les-Allues - Les Orres) of the 1973 Tour de France which crossed the Madeleine, the Télégraphe, the Galibier, and the Izoard before climbing to the finish at Les Orres. Although he is seen here riding just ahead of Mariano Martinez (GAN-Mercier), Thevenet would actually finish a scant 2 seconds behind Martinez on this day after a sprint involving just those two at the finish. Race leader Luis Ocana and fellow Spaniard Jose-Manuel Fuente (...who stood in second place overall at that point) had already completed the stage some 7 minutes earlier, while the remaining riders still in contention such as Zoetemelk, Agostinho, Poulidor, and Van Impe all straggled in more than 20 minutes after Ocana was home.
