In August and September one tour held the attention of the whole cycling world – and one small team from Africa captured their hearts. At the centre of it all was 22-year-old Louis Meintjes from Pretoria who finished fifth on one of the toughest climbs in La Vuelta history.
MTN-Qhubeka’s Meintjes may have gone into the Tour of Spain with the job of protecting team leader Sergio Pardilla, but the South African’s gutsy performance on the 200km queen stage earned him his fair share of the international limelight.
Facing inclines of up to 24 per cent in the closing kilometres, the young climber powered his way up to the Camperona summit to finish just 42 seconds behind Garmin-Sharp’s stage winner Ryder Hesjedal.
Although he had been aiming for a top-10 finish, Meintjes says he was unsure whether his efforts would pay off in the end.
“I didn’t know what to expect and would test myself on each preceding mountain stage to see how I was feeling.
“There was no point in trying to stay with the front guys so I could finish 25th. I would rather sit up and finish with the grupetto in order to rest for a good day.
“It paid off on this day.”
Meintjes says his original goal had simply been to stay out of trouble and finish every day to get to the end of the tour.
“It was important for my development to get through a three-week stage race. And then I wanted to be visible somehow.
“I knew that a top-10 stage result would be great so I was just waiting for my moment.”
It seems the national elite and U23 road race champion could not have picked a better one.
His result helped maintain MTN-Qhubeka’s already high profile as Grand Tour debutants.
“We wanted to make sure we were visible and had to try for stage wins and breakaways,” says Meintjes.
“You can’t come to a race and think, ‘Ah, we’re a small team’. You have to respect your competitors but also have confidence as a team.”
Africa’s first pro-continental squad was also the second youngest team on tour and sported the youngest rider in the race – 20-year-old Merhawi Kudus of Eritrea.
Meintjes says the riders were nevertheless unprepared for the full extent of the attention they received from the media and fans.
“It was already huge leading up to the tour, and then we realised what we were in for.
“It really started though on the first day during the team time-trial. The organisers asked us to shorten our warm-up as they wanted to take us to the start on a horse and carriage – live on TV.”
He says the media scrutiny certainly had positive spinoffs in terms of highlighting their cause.
“It was great going off first as a team because we could show off our Qhubeka bike project to the world.”
From a racing perspective, Meintjes believes they also achieved their goals.
“Coming into the race we had done Tour de Suisse, which was a WorldTour event, and gained great confidence. But the Grand Tour was harder than I expected and getting a result wasn’t easy at all.”
He says there were several incredibly testing days, with the hardest parts often coming in the first hour or so of the race.
“On some days we were averaging 60 kilometres per hour in that time. If you woke up with bad legs, you just had to hang on as much as you could.
“We finished La Vuelta with all nine riders and only a few teams managed to do that. We also managed a few top tens and were always present in breakaways, so I think we can leave well satisfied.”
Pardilla was MTN-Qhubeka’s highest placed rider, finishing 17th overall behind compatriot and Tinkoff-Saxo rider Alberto Contador, who secured the red jersey for the third time.
Meintjes ended a creditable 55th out of 159 finishers.
He says their support staff played a huge supporting role in ensuring that the riders did not waste any energy beyond the 21 racing stages, which covered just under 3 240km.
“Vuelta is like a moving circus. The race enters a town and brings life to the place.
“Then we’d move on like we weren’t even there. It’s quite amazing to see.”
After a jam-packed season that included second place in the general classification at the Mzansi Tour, Meintjes is now looking forward to a well-deserved rest.
“I’ll end my season at Worlds and then I’m looking forward to a holiday somewhere. It will be much needed and I can’t wait.”
