Ben Healy's Tour de France gamble pays off
Simon Yates won the challenging Bastille Day stage, distancing Healy on the final climb to claim his third career Tour stage victory.
Healy finished third on the stage, gaining significant time on Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, putting him 29 seconds ahead of Pogacar going into the rest day.
The 165km stage through the Massif Central featured eight categorised climbs and 4,500 metres of elevation, proving ideal for a successful breakaway.
Remco Evenepoel lost six seconds to Pogacar in the final, now trailing the world champion by a minute and sitting 16 seconds ahead of Jonas Vingegaard.
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BBC News
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Suffolk to host opening stages of Lloyds Tour of Britain Men race
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The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Tour de France 2025: Ben Healy rides into yellow as Simon Yates storms to stage 10 win
The Bastille Day stage of the 2025 Tour de France ended with an Englishman winning in the Auvergne, an Irishman in yellow, and a French hope falling by the wayside, as Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard called a truce on the eve of the first rest day. Simon Yates took a third career stage win in the Tour, only a few weeks after his unexpected success in the Giro d'Italia, dropping the last of his breakaway companions on the uphill finish to Puy de Sancy, while Ireland's Ben Healy claimed the first yellow jersey of his career. Healy, stage winner in Vire, had started the day almost four minutes behind the race leader, Pogacar, but as the defending champion and Vingegaard rode steadily to the finish line, the 24-year-old leapfrogged the Slovenian in the standings and became the first Irishman to wear the yellow jersey since Stephen Roche in 1987. 'It was such a tough stage today and I'm really tired, so I think this is only going to sink in tomorrow,' he said. 'I gave everything in the last 40 kilometres to give myself the best possible chance of taking the yellow jersey.' Healy's success was wholly deserved after he and his team had forced the pace to ensure the day's breakaway stayed clear to contest the finish, with the main peloton, containing Pogacar, almost six minutes distant. 'This is more for the team,' Healy said. 'They had to work hard today to put me in this position. Winning a stage was the first dream, but don't get me wrong, this yellow jersey is unbelievable.' Yates, winner of two stages in 2019, attacked at the foot of the final climb to Puy de Sancy, with only the Australian rider Ben O'Connor able to follow. As O'Connor faded, he was pursued into the final kilometre by Thymen Arensman of Ineos Grenadiers, but the Dutchman was unable to close the gap. As the race began in Lille, Yates had admitted needing to 'blow out the cobwebs' after his Giro win, but added that it had been a bigger challenge to reboot his motivation. 'It was a tough start for me,' he said of the Tour's Grand Départ, 'and not my forte. I was still quite tired after the Giro. Mentally, that was the hardest part.' Yates was among those in the day's breakaway who had admired Healy's unrelenting efforts to keep the pace high. 'It's really impressive how strong he is. It's not the first day I have felt his strength. I was also in the breakaway a few days ago when he won the stage and I was quite blown away with how much time he took.' The still air of the Auvergne was thick with the smell of roadside barbecues as the peloton tackled a sawtooth profile from Ennezat to Le Puy Sancy. But despite the Bastille Day celebrations there were mixed fortunes for the home nation with Kévin Vauquelin, third overall before the first real climbs, losing ground in the classification and dropping to sixth place. Meanwhile Lenny Martinez, whose grandfather Mariano Martinez won on the Bastille Day stage to Morzine in 1980, was the agent provocateur on the day's eight climbs. Martinez's accelerations on each ascent gradually reduced the initial break of 29 down to a final group of five and he was rewarded with the King of the Mountains jersey. As the stage entered the final 10km, a select group that included Healy, Yates and Martinez moved clear. While Yates rode to victory, the limpet-like Healy clung on to ensure he retained his time advantage over Pogacar. The Irishman gets a well-earned rest day in Toulouse on Tuesday as his EF Education-Easy Post team now look ahead to defending the race lead into the Pyrenees.
Reuters
8 hours ago
- Reuters
Healy gives Ireland rare yellow jersey as Simon Yates wins Tour de France 10th stage
MONT-DORE, France, July 14 (Reuters) - Ben Healy rode himself into the ground in a nail-biting finale to become the first Irishman in 38 years to wear the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, as Britain's Simon Yates claimed victory in stage 10 on Monday with a perfectly timed attack. Giro d'Italia champion Yates emerged from the day's breakaway to secure his third career Tour stage win, pulling away on the final climb to beat Thymen Arensman of the Netherlands and Healy, who finished second and third, respectively. Heading into the first rest day, Healy leads defending champion Tadej Pogacar by 29 seconds in the general classification, after the Slovenian eased off on the final ascent. "It was insanely tough, it was a battle against myself really. I just had to dig deep. My teammates put in so much work today, Harry (Sweeny) and Alex (Baudin), I really, really wanted to pay them back and I'm happy I could do that in the end," Healy, who won stage six last week, told reporters. "I kind of gambled a bit. I had the stage win in the bank and how often do you get the opportunity to put yourself into yellow so I felt I had to take that and really go for it." Belgian Remco Evenepoel sits third, one minute further back, after losing six seconds in the closing kilometres when Pogacar briefly surged in an attempt to test Jonas Vingegaard, widely seen as his main rival for the overall title. Vingegaard stayed locked onto Pogacar's wheel and remains 1:17 behind the UAE Team Emirates leader. As Pogacar approached the finish, Healy smiled while watching the Slovenian on the giant screen. With Pogacar visibly backing off, the EF Education–EasyPost rider crossed the line to become the first Irishman to lead the Tour since Stephen Roche won the race in 1987. Healy had looked one of the strongest riders in the breakaway on the 165.3-km hilly route from Ennezat, but Yates timed his move to perfection, attacking solo on the final climb to seal a tactical victory. While Yates rode cleverly to win the stage, the Visma-Lease a Bike team strategy was somehow puzzling as the Briton is expected to ride in support of his leader, Vingegaard. "The plan was to be in a breakaway in case someone (from the team) would attack from behind, but the gap became too big," Yates explained, six years after winning his last Tour stage. "It's been a long time, I did not expect it. We're here for Jonas." After Tuesday's rest, and Wednesday's flat stage around Toulouse, the peloton will head into the Pyrenees, where the GC battle will heat up.
