Louis Meintjes of the Toyota Supercycling Youth Academy conquered extreme weather, an abundance of hills and strong opposition to become the 2008 Amashova National Under-16 Cycle Tour champion at the weekend.

The country’s highest profile road cycling event for Under-16s took place over five stages in four days in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands on a tough course designed to test the young riders to the full. The weather also ranged from very hot and windy to cool and rainy, making the event a more complete challenge for the country’s future stars.

And it was Meintjes, a strong climber, who came out tops, claiming the race lead on Stage 3 with a solo 25km breakaway that put 55 seconds into the chasing pack on the undulating road from Midmar Dam and Dargle. Meintjes took the Yellow Jersey from teammate, Bradley Mitchell, who’d won the opening stage individual time trial and Stage 1.

“It was a big enough time gap to allow me to take the lead from Bradley, who had a superb tour himself. The most important thing was to keep the jersey in our team,” said Meintjes, a Grade 10 pupil at Bergsig High School in Rustenberg.

At 16, this was Meintjes’ only shot at the prestigious title and he was ecstatic with his performance: “I am very, very happy to have won, but as you know this is a team sport and I really must thank my team for doing such a good job in keeping the race lead from the start to the finish of the tour. The team was especially strong on the final stage.”

Mitchell, who won the first two stages, also won the final stage, but was relegated to 43rd position at the back end of the front bunch after it was deemed by officials that he’d received unfair assistance in rejoining the lead pack after suffering a mechanical problem with his chain. This gave Adam Reyneke (Mr Price A), who was originally second, the stage win as well as enough points to secure the final Points Jersey.

With two teams entered, the Toyota Supercycling Youth Academy was dominant, but there were promising performances from riders from other provinces and teams too with the likes of James Reid (House of Paint) finishing third in the final General Classification, Reyneke taking the Points classification, and Jade Julius (Western Province 1), winning the Best Young Rider competition.

In the Girls Junior Tour, which was held concurrently, Juan-Marie Breytenbach (Northern Free State) was dominant, winning four out of the five stages, and claiming the final overall title. The runner-up place went to Nicole Terblanche (Mr Price D) with Danny Dalton (KZN Mixed) rounding out the podium places.