South Africa’s Louis Meintjes hung on to this eighth spot at the Tour de France on Friday as Africa took stage honours in the shape of Dimension Data for Qhubeka.
At 222.5 kilometres, the 19th and third-last stage of this year’s Tour was the longest, and it was Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen who did the job for the Africa-based team.
Meintjes looks to be repeating his eighth place of last year. He’s 6:52 down on Chris Froome’s overall lead and 2:06 behind Simon Yates for Best Young Riders honours.
Daryl Impey is next-best South African, and seemingly getting stronger and stronger, moving up to 50th overall on Friday, 2:01:45 back.
Boasson Hagen’s Dimension Data teammates, Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (118th, 3:27:09) and Jaco Venter (156th, 4:11:50), are the other South Africans in the Tour.
In the team competition, the African side find themselves second from bottom, 5:44.35 behind Team Sky, but Friday’s victory will more than make up for any disappointment.
Knowing that Friday’s stage was the last chance for the opportunistic riders to shine in the race, it was no surprise to see countless attacks during the first part of the stage. It took nearly an hour of hard racing before a group of 20 riders finally managed to distance the peloton.
Boasson Hagen had been very attentive near the front, covering the most dangerous moves. In theory, the fast Norwegian didn’t have to attack, as he would be one of the favourites in a bunch sprint. However, when the big group went away, he was quick to follow, which proved to be a very good decision.
The breakaway worked well together and as the peloton seemed satisfied with the situation, the gap quickly grew to over seven minutes.
As the front group took on the last 40 km of the stage, the riders started attacking each other. Ultimately, nine riders – including Boasson Hagen – got away. The new front group kept splitting up, but only for a limited time as it always came back together again.
With about three kilometres left to go, Boasson Hagen was smart and took the right way around in a roundabout while the other riders went left. This opened up a small gap.
Nikias Arndt (Team Sunweb) originally followed Boasson Hagen, but he couldn’t keep up with the Norwegian time trial champion.
Boasson Hagen continued alone and he had plenty of time to celebrate and show the iconic five-fingers-salute for Qhubeka as he crossed the finishing line in Salon-de-Provence.
The peloton finished over 12 minutes down, with the yellow jersey Chris Froome (Team Sky) keeping the overall lead before Saturday’s 22.5km long individual time trial in Marseille.
Said Bassoon Hagen on his victory: ‘This is fantastic. The team helped me a lot before the break went away. They controlled the peloton, and on the climb I was in a good position to follow the attacks.
‘Within the front group, we worked really well together all day. Naturally, at the end, there were some attacks, but I managed to close them down quite smartly.
‘I had studied the course and I knew I had to go right in that last roundabout. Afterwards, I managed to go solo and I was so happy when I crossed the line. I’ve been so close so many times. It’s really nice to finally get this victory for the team and for myself as well,’ said the ever-humble sprinter.
Saturday’s penultimate stage starts and finishes in the Orange Stade Velodrome and is just 22.5km, which is less than half the normal distance for a closing TT, and time gaps between favourites should be measured in seconds rather than minutes.
It’s an exciting-looking course: a mixture of fast flat straights, swooping curves giving way to intricate and technical route changes in the second half.