SA’s Louis Meintjes Finishes 2nd in Today’s Stage of Tour de France

South Africa’s Louis Meintjes finished second behind Britain’s Tom Pidcock in Thursday’s 12th stage of the Tour de France, a 165.1km Alpine trek between Briancon and L’Alpe d’Huez.

A thrilled Louis tweeted this evening: “Well, what a day” and added a number two medal.

Well, what a day. 🥈@LeTour @IntermarcheWG pic.twitter.com/fQs9yE2Ood

— Louis (@LouisMeintjes) July 14, 2022

Pidcock, riding for Ineos-Grenadiers, prevailed from the day’s breakaway with an attack 3.3 km into the final climb, a 13.8km effort at an average gradient of 8.1 percent.

Meintjes, of Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux, was second some 48 seconds behind Pidcock and Britain’s four-time champion Chris Froome took third place a further 1min 18sec behind the South African.

Dane Jonas Vingegaard retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey after resisting a couple of attacks from his main rival, defending champion Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia.

As one of five survivors from the day’s breakaway, Pidcock, the Olympic mountain bike champion, made the first attack on the famous Alp, some 10km from the summit, and gradually rode away through seething masses of supporters.

Meintjs was heroic in finishing second. Six days ago the South African had come 16th on the first major summit stage finish of the Tour, 51 seconds behind Pogacar, and laughed at the comparison to Chris Froome’s run up the Mont Ventoux in the 2016 Tour.

“Yeah, us Africans, we love to run!” Meintjes had joked. “I ran, in the end, 50 metres, maybe even 60 metres. It was hard as I was almost losing a shoe, too.”

Meintjes moved up to 13th in the overall general classification, 15min 45sec behind the yellow jersey.

Source: TeamSA