Ben Healy downplays GC future after moving into Tour de France lead

Ben Healy’s default setting is to attack, but constant aggression at his debut Tour de France a year ago didn’t translate to success. A fifth place in Troyes felt like a scant return for his endeavour across the three weeks.

Twelve months on, the Irishman’s approach has been strikingly similar, but the rewards have been altogether more generous. After soloing to victory in Vire on stage 6, Healy is now the overall leader of the Tour thanks to another, no-holds-barred effort on the road to Le Monte-Dore on stage 10.

The EF Education-EasyPost rider began the day 3:55 off Tadej Pogacar’s overall lead. He might have worried that relatively slender margin would prevent him from getting in the day’s break. Instead, after something of an impasse behind, Healy rode his way to third on the stage and he reaches the rest day in the maillot jaune with a lead of 29 seconds over Pogacar.

“I’m pretty emotionless right now just because I’m so tired, but it’s really beyond belief,” Healy said after the podium ceremony. “If someone told me I’d have won a stage and be in yellow by the first rest day, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

In the press conference shortly afterwards, Healy was asked whether his stage victory or his yellow jersey represented the greater emotional high. The win in Vire, he explained, was an individual one. The yellow jersey, on the other hand, was the fruit of a concerted team effort, with Alex Baudin and Harry Sweeny – “A truck,” Healy said admiringly – played a key role in helping to drive the early break clear.

“I think they both mean a lot, but in very different ways,” Healy said “This yellow jersey is more for the team, they really had to work for me to do. The stage win was the first dream, and the yellow jersey feels like a bonus, personally. I have to go for the stage win, but don’t get me wrong – this yellow jersey is unbelievable.”

EF Education-EasyPost manager Jonathan Vaughters echoed Healy’s praise for his teammates. “Harry Sweeny was the MVP of the day,” Vaughters told Daniel Benson. “I mean, basically, he was in a drag race versus Tim Wellens and Nils Politt, and he won. I mean, Harry Sweeny was worth probably two minutes of that gap.”

Vaugthers’ team has held the yellow jersey twice before, through Thor Hushovd in 2011 and Richard Carapaz a year ago. Healy’s stint in yellow, however, had a different feel, given that he has been with the team since the start of his pro career.

“This is much more meaningful simply because the guys on the team now are really people that have come up through our system,” Vaughters said.

Healy’s gently rocking shoulders have reminded more than one observer of the style of Fernando Escartin, but the 24-year-old is remarkably efficient on the bike. In particular, his slender frame and hunched stance mean that there is precious little drafting benefit from sitting on his wheel.

In the final 40km of the stage, after the break’s lead stretched to five minutes, Healy took it upon himself to drive the front group, burning a number of strongmen – including Quinn Simmons – off his wheel. Healy knew he was sacrificing his hopes of a stage victory, but every pedal stroke was bringing him closer to yellow.

“I don’t know what it was like for them behind me, but that last 40k was really tough for me, even if I was still able to finish third,” Healy said. “I think they definitely had a tough time on my wheel – not so much because they were behind me, but because of the terrain. It was unforgiving today, hardly any downhill. It was up and up and up…”

Simon Yates (Visma | Lease a Bike) jumped to victory on the short, sharp final climb, while Healy stuck grimly to his task, coming in third at 31 seconds. Beyond the finish line, he endured an agonising wait for Pogacar to come in, but once the clock flipped past four minutes, he began to understand that yellow was his.

After his break-out season in 2023, Healy expressed the ambition of one day testing himself as a stage race rider. His gifts as a stage hunter have put that aim on hold in recent seasons, and he struck a realistic note about his prospects of one day competing with Pogacar et al for overall victory.

“I think that’s a super tough question. I think with the level Tadej and Jonas have, I’d really have to make a big step up,” Healy said. “I saw Tadej cross the line today, and he was fresh. But if you look at me right now, I’m definitely not that. So maybe one day, who knows, but right now I think that would be a bit ambitious.”

Even so, Healy, who is the fourth Irishman to wear yellow after Shay Elliott (1963), Sean Kelly (1983) and Stephen Roche (1987), acknowledged that he would endeavour to keep the jersey for a spell and then aim for as high a finish as he could muster in Paris.

“It would be strange not to be thinking about the overall right now,” he said. “I have to respect this jersey and try to hold on to it as long as possible.”