It’s a rare class of rider who wins a stage in the Tour de France, and Ben Healy displayed all his cycling promise, self-belief and trademark bravery to solo his way to victory on Thursday’s stage six from Bayeux to Vire Normandie.
The 24-year-old has already built a reputation as a fiery breakaway specialist, but that doesn’t make the task any easier. Especially under the heightened scrutiny of the Tour.
The 201km stage across the steep, rolling hills of the aptly named Swiss Normandy was perfectly cut for a breakaway, and Healy, racing for the US-based team EF Education–EasyPost, was the first rider to make a go of it. Repeatedly trying to get clear after just 20km, eventually his persistence would pay off.
In the end, having made a decisive split off the front of an eight-rider breakaway with 42km remaining, Healy won by a massive two minutes and 44 seconds. With that he became only the seventh Irish rider to win a stage in the Tour de France, and the first since Sam Bennett won the last stage on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in 2020.
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Healy’s blistering effort also moved him up 25 places in the General Classification and he now sits eighth overall, just 2′01 down on new race leader Mathieu van der Poel, who took the yellow jersey from Tadej Pogacar by a single second.
Ireland’s Eddie Dunbar was also part of the eight-rider breakaway that started to open some distance on the peloton 120km from home, as was Van de Poel, before moving over three minutes clear with 60km remaining. Dunbar ended up fourth, 3′21 down on Healy, and moves up 17 places to 29th in the GC.
The day belonged to Healy. With 35km to go, his gap was out to half a minute and he extended it to almost a minute with 30km to go. There was one last brute of a climb, the Côte de Vaudry, 4km from the finish, but once over that safely Healy’s victory was never in doubt.
“It’s just unbelievable, really what I’ve worked for, not just this year the whole time,” said Healy, who also won a solo breakaway stage in the Giro d’Italia in 2023. “It’s really incredible, hours and hours of hard work from some many people, and to pay them back today is really, really amazing.”
Last year, competing in his first Tour, Healy was part of the breakaway on multiple stages, finishing fifth on stage nine and winning the combativity award on stage 14 – ending up 27th overall. He then competed in the road race at the Paris Olympics, finishing 10th, and earlier this year showed further promise by coming third in Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Thursday’s stage being similar in vertical gain.
“I think last year was a real eye-opener, really made me believe I could do it,” Healy added. “I just knuckled down and did the hard work, tried to refine my racing style as well, lots of race footage watched, and it really paid off today I think.
“I just switched on from the start, maybe spent a bit too much trying to get into the break, but that’s just the way I do it. Once I was in there, we really had to work for that gap, and it was just on the pedals all day. I knew that I needed to get away from the group, pick my moment, and I think I timed it well, maybe caught them by surprise a little bit.
“Then I knew what I had to do, just head down and do my best ride to the finish. This was a stage I circled from the start, suited me down to the ground, and to do it on the first one is really, really amazing.”
Healy joins previous Irish Tour de France stage winners Shay Elliott, Seán Kelly, Stephen Roche, Martin Earley, Dan Martin and Bennett.
Healy has always shown his Tour promise. In 2020, he won the last stage of the Ronde de l’Isard in France, considered one of the top under-23 races in the world, the same day as Bennett won the last stage of the Tour de France. In 2019, Healy was also the youngest ever winner of a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir.
Healy was born in Stourbridge, outside of Birmingham, and only began his cycling career with Ireland in the summer of 2018, winning the Irish junior time-trial title. With a grandparent from Waterford and Cork, his move to represent Ireland was greatly encourage by Martin O’Loughlin of Cycling Ireland, who also played an influential part in Bennett’s early career.
