Meintjes: "That was one of my main goals before stopping my career"

Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert): "It’s 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 stopping my career. The last few days, I was just not quite fast enough in the mountain finishes to keep up with the GC guys. If I can’t a result that way, the best was to go in the breakaway and it worked out perfectly. Today I was quite lucky. My team controlled in the start and I only needed to try one time. It was quite a hard day and [the other breakaway riders] made me work harder. 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 was a really hard climb so it was better to just time trial to the finish. It’s really special [to join Robert Hunter as the 2 South-African stage winners of La Vuelta]."