A stage long marked for upheaval in the Tour de France, and by the end it was Ben Healy who took Bastille Day by storm. C’est magnifique, by any Irish sporting standard.
After another daylong breakaway ride, Healy moved himself into the leader’s yellow jersey, finishing third on Monday’s mountainous stage 10 in the Massif Central. In only his second Tour start, it’s fast become a fairytale race for the 24-year-old.
“Yeah, it’s exactly that, it’s a fairytale,” Healy said. “I mean if you told me this, before the Tour, I wouldn’t have believed you. A stage win, and now the yellow jersey, is just incredible, beyond belief really.
“At some point, the stage became a fight against myself. I know I was taking some risks, by digging so deep for so long, but how often does an opportunity like this come around?”
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Indeed four days after he took the outright win in stage six, this time Healy pulled off a massive time gain during the first big day of climbs on the 163km from Ennezat to Puy de Sancy. He finished the day as the first Irish rider to win the famed maillot jaune in 38 years, ending the long gap to Stephen Roche, who wore it for three days during his outright Tour win in 1987.
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Healy had started the day 11th in the general classification (GC), three minutes and 55 seconds down on race leader to Tadej Pogacar, but he made up sufficient time on the stage to move into the virtual race lead, with just under 70km to go and built on that time all the way to the finish.
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Pogacar, the defending Tour champion from the UAE-Team Emirates team, eventually finished 4 minutes and 51 seconds back on the stage, in ninth place, and now lies in second place overall, 29 seconds behind Healy. The 26-year-old from Slovenia remains the raging-hot favourite to win his fourth Tour in six years, but Healy, of US-based team EF Education–EasyPost, has unquestionably put himself in contention.
“It wasn’t exactly the plan,” Healy said of his race-day tactics. “We were surprised that UAE Team Emirates let such a big break up the road, and we took advantage of it by putting four riders in there. I have to say a big thank you to my team-mates, Neilson Powless, Alex Baudin and Harry Sweeny because, without them, getting the yellow jersey would have been impossible.
“It was pretty nerve-racking to wait for four minutes in order to find out whether I was in yellow or not.”
The early breakaway of 29 riders also included Britain’s Simon Yates of Team Visma-Lease a Bike, who made his bid for stage glory with just under 2km remaining, and took the honours for the day. The 32-year-old Yates attacked at the base of Le Mont-Dore with 3.5km to go to win the stage by nine seconds, 31 seconds ahead of Healy in third.
Healy also took over the white jersey awarded each day to the best younger rider in the GC, aged 25 or under, moving ahead of Remco Evenepoel, the Olympic road-race champion from Belgium, who now lies third overall, 1:29 down on Healy.
On top of that, Healy was named the most combative rider of stage 10, voted on by the race jury. Heading into Tuesday’s first rest day, it also changes his goals for the remaining two weeks ahead of the finish in Paris on July 27th.
“You’ve got to respect the jersey, and I’m in quite a nice position now I guess, to try to hold on as long as possible.”
Healy thus becomes only the fourth Irish rider in the now 112 editions of the Tour to hold the race lead; as well as Roche in 1987, Shay Elliott also held the race lead for three days back in 1963, as did Seán Kelly for one day in 1983.
“Some pretty crazy footsteps to follow, isn’t it?” Healy added. “I’m just super proud to represent Ireland, and wear the yellow jersey for them, and hopefully I can do it some justice.”
Healy has already built a reputation as a fiery breakaway specialist, also showing that last Thursday when he broke clear with 42km to go
It was a truly testing day of climbs, the 4,400m of vertical gain setting a new Tour record for the most second-category climbs on a single stage, before the brutal finish up Puy de Sancy, the highest peak in the region. By that last climb, the breakaway was reduced to five riders, Healy repeatedly setting the pace at the front, as he had been throughout the breakaway.
Last Thursday, Healy also joined the elite club of Irish Tour de France stage winners, after Elliott first blazed the trail back in 1963, before Kelly and Roche, and then Martin Earley, Dan Martin and Sam Bennett.
Healy has always shown such 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.
Born in Stourbridge, outside of Birmingham, Healy only began his cycling career with Ireland in the summer of 2018, greatly encouraged by his cycling-mad father Bryan, when winning the Irish junior time-trial title. With a grandparent from Waterford and Cork, his move to represent Ireland was also greatly encouraged by Martin O’Loughlin of Cycling Ireland, who also played an influential part in Bennett’s early career.
