After a turbulent few weeks during the winter, Louis Meintjes (UAE Abu Dhabi) was relieved to start racing at last month’s Tour Down Under and the 24-year-old has firmly set his sights on another strong performance at the Tour de France this July.
The South African climber finished in eighth place at last year’s Tour with a consistent set of displays in both the mountains and individual time trials. It marked his second top-10 finish in a Grand Tour in successive years, and expectations remain high for the talented rider.
“The plan is to obviously prepare for the Tour de France again. We have to see how the build-up goes but if everything is in order then I’ll go back to the Tour,” he recently told Cyclingnews.
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“Hopefully it goes as well as last year. You always want to do better, and take something from the race but I just need to prepare as well as I can. Then when I’m there, if I can take a stage win or get a GC result… pretty much anything like that will do.”
Meintjes had a quiet Tour Down Under - as he did in 2016, before he found his best form in June, July and August. Having been hampered by illness at the start of last year, and then suffering a serious fall, he is hoping to have smoother build up towards his major objectives.
“I had a bit of bad luck last year. I got sick near the start and then I had a pretty hard crash in Catalunya. But what I can take from last year is a lot of confidence. I’ve now had two GC results in Grand Tours.
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