The 7th and queen stage of the Criterium du Dauphine would be a spectacular day for MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung. Louis Meintjes put in a phenomenal ride to claim 3rd place on the stage, only beaten by stage victor Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing).
All this excitement only came after Daniel Teklehaimanot all but wrapped up the King of the Mountians competition. Daniel and Louis were part of the large break of the day that had 5 category 1 climbs before them. Daniel took maximum points on the first 3 cat 1 climbs while Louis picked up a few points himself to move into 2nd place in the Polka Dot jersey competition. Daniel only needs to complete tomorrow’s final stage to win our team’s first ever World Tour leaders jersey!
Once the excitement of the KOM battle settled somewhat, there was still the stage honours up for grabs, and what a spectacle it would be. It came down to final 12km’s and the last 2 cat 1 climbs where 4 riders had 30″ on the group that contained Louis, Pierre Rolland (Eurpocar), Pawel Polijanski (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Alexis Vulliermoz (AG2R La Mondiale) with the group of GC favourites a further 1’30” down the road.
The gap between the 4 front runners and the GC group quickly got compressed under the hand of Team Sky on the steeper gradients. When Froome and van Garderen attacked with 4km to go, it resulted in the race coming all back together. Froome and van Garderen then surged ahead with 3km to go and Louis joined Benat Intxausti (Movistar) in the pursuit of the 2 leaders.
Froome would later gap van Garderen to take a good win but it was the American that would don the yellow leader’s jersey. Behind them Louis and Intxausti would be able to hold on to compete for the final stage podium spot, Louis just edging Intaxusti for 3rd. It was carnage behind as the rest of the favourites came home in one’s and two’s.
Louis Meintjes – Rider
Daniel Teklehaimanot – Rider
Fantastic! Well done Louis!