A decisive weekend in the Alps started this Saturday with a mountain top finish on top of ski resort Vaujany, preceded by the mythical cols du Galibier and de la Croix de Fer.
Just like on the first day, young rider Laurens Huys showed himself in the front of the race by joining the breakaway of eighteen riders on the slopes of the Galibier with its top after 26 kilometer of racing.
His adventure in the lead of the race lasted until the irregular 29 kilometer climb Col de la Croix de Fer. Louis Meintjes and Jan Hirt were part of a peloton of twenty riders in the downhill leading towards the final climb Vaujany.
Meintjes chose to anticipate and accelerated with 3 kilometer to go, before he was joined by six other riders. In the end, the South-African climber took eight place, enabling him to enter the top ten of the general classification.
« So far, we showed a couple o nice collective performances. Hugo Page nicely surprised me, because on top of his fast legs, he also climbs pretty well. This enables him to sprint for the victory, even in a hard stage like yesterday. Personally, I raced attentively in anticipation of this weekend. Today, attacks were all over the place in the beginning. I was happy to see that Laurens Huys was in the breakaway. The headwind made it difficult for the leaders, so I focused on staying with the GC favorites. The peloton accelerated in the approach to each mountain stage, so the group got smaller and smaller. » « I felt good on the final climb. Thanks to my 8th place I managed to climb in the top ten of the general classification. This encourages me to improve my position tomorrow in the eight and last stage. The most important climbs are concentrated in the final, so the gaps might be bigger. But I suspect the beginning of the race, because if there are many attacks like today, this 130 kilometer stage could be tricky… »
