Louis Meintjes had a great day in the mountains on Wednesday, grabbing back a big chunk of time in the Best Young Rider category as the Tour de France reached stage 17.
Riders had to tackle a gruelling 183 kilometres between Le Murre and Serre Chavalier, and when all was done and dusted Meintjes had ended ninth on the day, the UAE Team Emirates rider 1min 44sec behind stage winner Primoz Roglic of Slovenia.
More importantly, he’d won back 90sec on his white-jersey rival Simon Yates in the Best Young Rider classification.
In the General Classification, he hung on to his eighth spot, 6:35 behind the yellow jersey of Chris Froome (Team Sky), with the selfsame Yates of Orica-Scott in seventh, 2:28 ahead. Then comes Meintjes’ fellow Olympian Daryl Impey, who has moved up to 52nd (1:55:24), followed by Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka’s Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (116th, +2:58:56) and Jaco Venter (158th, 3:43:37).
‘Another good day at Le Tour de France,’ said Meintjes on his social media feed after the stage. ‘My legs felt good today and the team worked really well together. Having Atapuma in the breakaway helped me in the last bit and we gave it a good try.
‘Tomorrow is a mountain stage and another important one. Never give up.’
Meanwhile African outfit Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka’s Serge Pauwels put up an impressive fight, the strong Belgian on the attack all day long, gunning for victory.
As expected, the stage started out at a fast pace, with countless breakaway attempts during the opening kilometres. However, it wasn’t until the riders took on the category 2 climb, Col d’Ornon, that a big group finally got away. Pauwels had been very attentive near the front and he had no problems making it into the break.
Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) later attacked from the peloton on the slopes towards the top of the first HC-climb of the day, Col de la Croix de Fer. He bridged across to the break, and afterwards had his teammates setting a fast tempo at the front. This thinned out the group significantly, and as the breakaway took on the final two climbs, only a dozen-odd riders were left at the front.
Pauwels put in a couple of attacks, but his rivals were quick to respond. On Col du Galibier only four riders managed to keep up with the Belgian climber; Darwin Atapuma (UAE Team Emirates), Matthias Frank (Ag2r), Primoz Roglic (Team LottoNL-Jumbo) and Contador. At one point, Pauwels was at the front with only Roglic and Contador, but Atapuma and Frank came back as the collaboration between the three riders wasn’t great. Ultimately, Roglic counter-attacked and managed to get away on his own.
Pauwels fought hard, chasing the Slovenian rider. However, as the GC riders starting attacking each other behind him, Pauwels was caught just before the top of Galibier. Roglic continued solo to win the stage, while Pauwels crossed the line in 13th place and moved into Top 20 overall. Chris Froome was third on the stage and therefore kept the yellow jersey for another day.
Steve Cummings and South African Reinardt Janse van Rensburg were involved in a crash early on the stage. Fortunately, both were able to get back on their bikes and finish the stage.
In the team standings, Dimension Data are 20th of 22 teams, 5hr 04min 42sec behind Team Sky, who in turn are 10:35 clear of AG2rLa Mondiale.
Thursday sees another hard day in the Alps with the mountain-top finish on Col d’Izoard.
It’s a 179.5km ride from Briancon and while the first half is nothing to get excited about in terms of hills, it hots up after halfway with first the Col du Vars, last tackled in the Tour 17 years ago, and then the colossal Col d’Izoard, which is a 14km slog to the top with lengthy sections of 9% gradient and more, and a particularly nasty section of 14% near the crest.
It’s a stage where the King of the Mountains category will be decided once and for all, and with the riders already drained after Wednesday’s stage it’s going to be make or break, with any weakness likely to be brutally exposed.