Vuelta a Espana stage 9: Louis Meintjes wins from the break, Remco Evenepoel makes gains

Louis Meintjes blazed to the first grand tour stage win of his career on Sunday, infiltrating the day’s breakaway on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España and then dropping his rivals on the wall-like final climb of Les Praeres.

The South African Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert rider showed the same sort of form which earned him eighth in the Tour de France, hitting the line 1:01 ahead of his nearest rival Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan Team). Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain-Victorious) was third, 1:14 back.

Behind, race leader Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) had a superb stage, dropping the other GC contenders and opening up large time gaps inside the final three kilometers. He gobbled up all of the breakaway riders bar the first three, crossing the line 1:34 behind Meintjes in fourth place.

GC challengers Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates), Enric Mas (Movistar Team), Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) finished sixth, eight, ninth and tenth, and gave up between 34 and 52 seconds to Evenepoel.

The Belgian now heads into Monday’s rest day with what appears to be a vice-like grip on the red jersey. He is 1:12 in front of Mas, 1:53 up on Roglič, 2:33 ahead of Rodríguez and 2:36 up on Ayuso.

Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) was 12th on the stage and is now over three minutes back. João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Miguel Ángel López (Astana Qasaqstan), Jai Hindley (Bora-hansgrohe) and Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers) are at least four and a half minutes adrift.

Four days in La Roja 😃#LaVuelta22 pic.twitter.com/7YoWNvTE5L

— Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team (@qst_alphavinyl) August 28, 2022

The stage featured five climbs, including the first category climbs of the Mirador del Fito and the summit finish of Les Praeres Nava. An aggressive start was followed by the establishment of a 10-man breakaway, which soon shrank to nine riders and opened a maximum lead of more than five minutes.

Janssens and Battistella attacked prior to the final climb but were caught by Meintjes, who immediately dropped him and began his successful push for home.

Race leader Evenepoel ramped up the pace on the climb and had dropped all of his rivals by the 3km to go banner, driving on from there to open up the gaps and extend his grip on the red jersey.

“I think we really did want the breakaway to go for the stage,” Evenepoel said at the finish. “It is always better that the bonification seconds are gone. I think it was perfect that the guys from the breakaway took the stage. And then it was up to me to try to take time.

“I had the legs to go all out for taking time and I am really happy with what we showed today as a team.”

Meintjes visibly had a weight off, the introverted climber showing relief in the post-race interview.

“It is something special, I guess. I think I still need some time [for it] to set in,” he said. “Actually I have never been on the podium of a WorldTour race, except for team classification, so one of my main goals before stopping my career is to get onto the podium of a World Tour race.”

Meintjes was second on a stage of the Tour in July and took that top ten finish overall. He was also sixth overall in this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné and was, on paper, by far the best climber in the break. Was he confident in his abilities heading toward the finish?

“Not really,” he said. “It was quite a hard day and also they made me do a bit more work, always closing the gap and accelerating. I knew I was also spending more energy than a lot of guys, I was not sure I would still have the best legs.

“I knew it [the climb] was really hard. Actually it didn’t matter if you followed the breakaway or not, it was just a time trial to the finish.”

Another stage for the break

Stage nine of the Vuelta a España was yet another mountain day and the third summit finish thus far in the race. It began with the second-ever stage from Villaviciosa, and the riders faced five climbs over the course of 171.4 kilometers.

These were the category two Alto del Torno (55.6km), the category one Mirador del Fito (93km), the category three pairing of the Alto de la Llama (118.1km) and La Campa (148.6km) and then the big showdown on the brutal category one ramp to Les Praeres Nava.

Although this was just 3.9 kilometers long, it averaged 12.9 percent and included sections of 23 and 24 percent respectively.

There were three non-starters, with Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) and Pieter Serry (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) becoming the eight and ninth riders to retire from the Vuelta a España with positive COVID-19 tests, and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) leaving with what his team described as a fever.

The attacks went immediately from the start with various groups getting clear and coming back. Ten riders then made a move after 44km of racing, with Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan), Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious), Dylan van Baarle (Ineos Grenadiers), Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Filippo Conca (Lotto Soudal), Thymen Arensman (Team DSM), Jimmy Janssens, Robert Stannard (both Alpecin Deceuninck), José Manuel Diaz Gallego (Burgos-BH) and Simon Guglielmi (Arkea Samsic) opening a strong lead.

Meintjes was best placed overall of the group, starting the day 8:28 back in 29th place. That gap meant they were no immediate threat to Evenepoel’s race lead, giving them greater flexibility.

Saturday’s stage winner and king of the mountains Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and stage 8 runner-up Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) tried to close the gap but were caught by the bunch, as was Arensman. He dropped back from the break, with the remaining nine riders going over the summit of the first climb 3:25 ahead of the peloton.

Stannard and Janssens were first and second there, defending teammate’ Vine’s KOM lead by mopping up points.

The gap continued to grow, reaching 5:18 on the way up the day’s second climb, but decreasing to 4:45 by the time Stannard and Janssens—again—led over the summit. However it once again breached the five minute mark on the third climb, the Alto de la Llama, inching upwards to 5:20. There was a case of déjà vu there when Stannard and Janssens again mopped up the points.

The contenders whittle down

The nine leaders were working to build a big enough buffer to dispute the stage win and things looked encouraging heading into the final 50km. They had 5:05 there and still held 4:18 of that on the La Campa climb with 25km left. Evenepoel’s Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl was setting the pace but seemed increasingly resigned to the break staying away.

Conca had won the earlier intermediate sprint at Villaviciosa, leading Van Baarle and Stannard over the line. The latter was—again—first to the summit of La Campa and the break then raced down the descent and towards the start of the concluding climb.

Janssens was active before slopes began, going away with Conca with 12km remaining and then, following their recapture, clipping away again with Battistella. They had a lead of several seconds going into the final 8km, but Janssens stopped collaborating due to team instructions.

Meintjes tried to get across on the undulating roads and when he was unable to do so, Van Baarle played his hand but had the same result.

Behind, world champion Julian Alaphilippe was driving the bunch along for team leader Evenepoel. Ineos Grenadier’s co-leader Tao Geoghegan Hart crashed on a bend with Chris Harper, with Geoghegan Hart able to get going again much more quickly than the injured Jumbo-Visma rider.

Ahead, the riders were on the final climb and Meintjes was flying. He caught and dropped Van Baarle, then Battistella, then Janssens, going clear alone with 2.6km left.

Behind, Evenepoel was replicating his tactic of stages 6 and 8, turning the screw from the front and dragging Mas, Roglič and Ayuso clear. The race leader then dug in again going under the 3km to go banner, dropping each of them.

Meintjes was riding impressively and extended his lead all the way to the line. Evenepoel was on a complete charge behind, building his own advantage with each pedal stroke. It was an impressive display, and will leave the other big names demoralized and doubtful heading into Monday’s rest day.