Meintjes second on L’Alpe d’Huez after heroic ride   South Africa’s Louis Meintjes finished second behind Britain’s Tom Pidcock in Thursday’s 12th stage of the Tour de France, a 165.1km Alpine trek between Briancon and L’Alpe d’Huez. Pidcock, riding for Ineos-Grenadiers, prevailed from the day’s breakaway with an attack 3.3 km into the final climb, a 13.8km effort at an average gradient of 8.1 percent. Meintjes, of Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux, was second some 48 seconds behind Pidcock and Britain’s four-time champion Chris Froome took third place a further 1min 18sec behind...

Springbok scrumhalf Faf de Klerk said the possible return of French captain Antoine Dupont to the hosts’ team for their Rugby World Cup quarter-final on Sunday won’t change the Boks’ approach to a match which the team has billed as “massive” as the competition reached the knock-out stage this week. Dupont was injured in France’s pool game against Namibia a few weeks ago when he fractured his cheekbone, but the French Rugby Federation said on Monday that their captain had been given the green light to return to training following surgery. The Springboks arrived in Paris on Monday afternoon...