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SA’s new leader hunting
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green machine
Will World Champ
Peter Sagan claim his
5th sprinters’ jersey?
Pink Prodigy
A new team for
SA’s rising star
Louis Meintjes
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Local hero
Louis Meintjes
New colours, same talent
L
ouis Meintjes has come a
long way in the three years
since he turned professional.
In 2013 he announced his
arrival on the international stage
with a silver medal at the World U23
Road Race Championships, and in
September 2015 he became the first
South African to finish in the top 10
of a grand tour, when he finished 10th
overall in the Vuelta a España.
The 24-year-old’s development was
on par with that of his first team, MTNQhubeka, which went from racing in
South Africa to winning a stage of the
Tour de France within the space of
just a few years. So it sent quite a few
ripples through the cycling fraternity
when he announced his move to
Lampre-Merida last September.
Meintjes says his decision to move
away from the familiar environment
of the Qhubeka squad was not an easy
one. “It was a leap of faith. It was a
really hard decision to make, but I felt
it was something I had to try, and in
the end I went for it. I was worried
about how everyone would react,
but at the end of the day I am happy
I made the move.” Even though the
year hasn’t gone perfectly? “Yeah I still
feel like it was the right decision. You
can have bad luck anywhere. I could
“There is a big family
environment”
have stayed with Qhubeka and been
in the same position,” he says.
Compared to previous years,
Meintjes hasn’t had a satisfying start
to the season. He completed the
Santos Tour Down Under with a 16th
overall, and was only 22nd in ParisNice. These are results that South
44
tour de france 2016
African fans might have signed up
for five years ago, but the stakes have
changed with what the country’s
riders have achieved on the world
stage in recent years.
They say numbers don’t lie and
Meintjes says, year on year, his training
data is better this year. It just hasn’t
translated into good racing yet. He
leaves home confidently after good,
hard training days, only for things not
to go according to plan in competition.
I try to get a sense of his new
environment in an Italian team that
has been around for as long as anyone
can remember. SA cycling had hardly
had any top-flight riders in Europe
until MTN-Qhubeka came along, but
Lampre has been around so long that
they employed a South African, Robbie
Hunter, way back in 1999.
Louis
Meintjes
will fight for a
top 10 place,
a result he
achieved in
last year’s
Vuelta.
“The staff have been working
together for a long time and there
is a big family environment,” says
Meintjes. “If you go to one staff
member, they can tell you everything
about the other one. The biggest
difference is that everything was
new for us at MTN-Qhubeka. We
were trying to break new ground,
so everyone was working together
as a group for the first time. Here at
Lampre-Merida you feel like you’re
entering a group that has been
together for a long time.”
The former South African road
race champion also says he’s had
fun learning Italian culture. As our
conversation continues, I pick up on
a theme running through his answers.
He speaks of a “relaxed environment”,
“more informal”, more “freedom”.
If you’ve ever met Meintjes, you’ll
know he is very relaxed – chilled as
we say here in SA. But don’t mistake
that for not being very focussed. “I
enjoy the freedom of having to do what
you feel like instead of fitting into a
structure. At Lampre they believe they
do whatever is best for you.”
I put it to him that he comes across
as a very relaxed person but that
shouldn’t be mistaken for not having
firm opinions. He agrees with a laugh.
“I see no reason to get stressed
too much but when something is
important, it’s important. There’s a
time to be focussed and serious, but
you don’t have to always be stressed.”
Other differences between previous
years and this one include a change to
his training. There’s more intensity.
The harder days are harder and the
easier days are easier.
He may be wearing pink this year,
but the one constant that remains the
same is his talent. We may yet see
Louis Meintjes get his time to shine
in 2016, and it could just be in the
biggest race of them all.
photograph: bettiniphoto
Louis Meintjes took South African cycling fans by surprise last year when he
announced he was signing a two-year contract with Italian team Lampre-Merida,
starting in 2016. The promising young rider will now line up in pink for the 2016
Tour de France, where his natural climbing talent should shine. By Xylon van Eyck