Remco Evenepoel pulls clear of Vuelta rivals as Louis Meintjes wins stage nine

Remco Evenepoel dropped his main challengers on Sunday’s gruelling final ascent at Les Praeres to increase his overall Vuelta a España lead on stage nine.

The Belgian rider launched his attack about 3km from the summit to extend his lead before Monday’s rest day and Tuesday’s time trial in Alicante. Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) extended his lead over Enric Mas (Movistar) by 44 seconds to 1m 12s, with defending champion Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) nearly two minutes behind.

Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty Gobert) broke away to win the stage, crossing the line more than a minute ahead of Samuele Battistella (Astana), Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain-Victorious) and Evenepoel. The 30-year-old is the first South African stage winner in the Vuelta since Robbie Hunter in 2001.Evenepoel got the help he needed from his Quick-Step team despite the absence of Pieter Serry, who had to withdraw before the stage after testing positive for Covid-19. “I’m really impressed by my team,” the 22-year-old said.

“I’m so happy with the guys, it actually makes me a bit emotional seeing these guys working their hearts out for me,” Evenepoel added. “In a climb like this, it’s all about the power, there’s no drafting or anything because it’s too steep.”

Meintjes, who moved up to 16th in the overall classification, called his stage win “something special … I’ve never been on the podium of a World Tour race except for a team classification so that was one of my main goals before ending my career.”

“The last few days, I was just not quite fast enough in the mountain finishes,” he added. “If I can’t [get] a result that way, the best was to go in the breakaway and it worked out perfectly.”

The six-time British time trial champion Alex Dowsett has